Strange Goings-on with currency formatted cells

[joeaspinall]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel Hi,

I am running Excel version 12.2.3 (091001) on an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6.2.

I use a few different spreadsheets to keep track of the household finances.

I formatted all cells containing amounts of money as Currency, with 2 decimal places and the GBP (£) sign selected (I'm in the UK). Also for negative numbers I chose that they were displayed in red, with a minus sign at the beginning.

This has been fine for 18 months until recently when I started opening the same spreadsheets and I noticed something different.

Minus amounts were still showing in red and with the £ sign, but they were enclosed with brackets instead of having a minus in front.

I checked to see how the cells were formatted, and the following format was selected under the Custom menu:

£#,##0.00_);[Red](£#,##0.00)

I have never chosen this format myself and I don't know how it has come to be selected.

The most worrying thing is this: When I go through my spreadsheets and re-format the cells back to the original Currency setting, then save them, the next time the spreadsheet is opened the format has swapped back to the above Custom setting.

This happens even if I delete the custom setting in question from the format menu.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

 

[CyberTaz]

Perhaps a damaged/corrupt preference file. Make sure Excel is not running
then go to: UserName/Library/Preferences. Rename or move the file:

com.microsoft.Excel.plist

Excel will generate a new one on launch. If the problem is resolved you can
delete the old .plist file.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[joeaspinall]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I've done what you said and after changing the cell format back to currency, saving, closing then reopening, the same issue is still happening.

Anything else I could try?

 

[CyberTaz]

How did you apply the original formatting you described? I do not see any
default option for Currency that uses both a minus sign *and* Red to denote
a negative value. In order to have both you would have to create a custom
format such as : £#,##0.00;[Red]-£#,##0.00

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[joeaspinall]

It's an option in the Format Cells menu.

I've taken a screenshot which can be seen from here:

http://files.me.com/joeaspinall/m0ebiy

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, I'm not sure what to tell you. The Currency formats I have in the
Format> Cells> Numbers do not include the minus in red. I'm wondering if it
may have something to do with the regional settings in System Preferences>
Language & Text. See what that's set for... Just remember that you need to
re-launch Excel for any changes to take effect.

What happens if you create a custom format like the one I suggested?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac