Excel- Negative Numbers Displayed in Red and within Brackets

Question

About one week ago, I ran the latest Windows 11 Cumulative Update on my PC.

Shortly after the update, I opened Excel to do some work and noticed immediately that number formatting was changed in all of my files and negative values no longer displayed within brackets as before. All negative values are still displayed in red but are now preceded by a negative hyphen symbol instead of being bracketed.

Now, when I select a range of cells in Excel, open the "Format Cells..." dialogue box, and select "Numbers", I find that the option to show a negative number in red and within brackets is no longer listed!!

Come on Microsoft, what is going on here?? This is not the first time I have experienced arbitrary and unwelcome changes in files formatting after a Cumulative Windows Update, and the situation is becoming tiresome and unacceptable.

How can I restore the "Format Cells.." > "Numbers" format option in Excel to display negative values, in red and within brackets, as the default ??

Any help would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Try this format.

#,##0;Red

Answer 2

Try this format.

#,##0;Red

I thank you for your response, but it does not address the problem I have with Windows 11 and Excel.

In Excel, I have always used the - [Red in Brackets] - format as the default for all negative number values.

Prior to the last Windows 11 Cumulative Update, this was listed as a default Excel formatting option in the "Number" category. Post Update, this option is no longer listed in Excel.

To make matters worse, negative values in all of my existing Excel files - [previously red bracketed] - have been arbitrarily changed to display in red with a preceding negative sign [-].

I am already aware of how to define a Custom - [Red in Brackets] - formatting option in Excel. This however is not a solution to the problem. It is impractical to manually apply a Custom Formatting option every time a negative cell value is entered. I need, as before, to set up the - [Red in Brackets] - formatting option as my default for negative number values. How can I do this.?

Answer 3

It looks product team makes this change. You can raise a support ticket to Microsoft.

Please contact your admin/IT department create a support ticket via Microsoft 365 Admin Center> Support> New service request.

Answer 4

Were you able to find a solution? I'm surprised more people are not complaining about this. I've been using Excel for decades and have always had negative numbers shown in red.

Answer 5

No!

No solutions offered and no word from anyone at MS. [Typical monopolistic attitude!!].

Regards

Peter Malkin