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

Many EXCEL users need to show negative numbers in bracket.

What bothers me the Help in EXCEL is not helping.

Pls note: If the option is unavailable, you can just type in Category "Custom".

BLACK #,##0;(#,##0)

RED #,##0;Red