Significance of _- in custom format

D

dee

If have been looking through the posts, but can't seem to find anything
regarding the significance of _- when custom formatting cells.

I have used this in order to have dollar signs line up at the left of my
cells, but just don't understand the exact logic.
 
J

John

copy of information from help
To create a space that is the width of a character in a number format,
include an underscore, followed by the character. For example, when you
follow an underscore with a right parenthesis, such as _), positive numbers
line up correctly with negative numbers that are enclosed in parentheses.

--
John
MOS Master Instructor Office 2000, 2002 & 2003
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D

dee

Thanks for the response. I saw this in Help, but I guess my question is:

Why do I have to format like this, even if not using negative numbers, in
order to have the $ all line up at the left of the cell?

It works when I type _- That's great. I guess I just want to
understand more clearly exactly it works this way. Why not put _$ for
example?
 
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