MS Office Tuts - Kamaraj Mani: Custom Format

There are four in-built number formats available in excel under “Number Category” in Format cell dialog box, they are explained in given table

S.No	Value	Format	Result	Color
1.	-1234.10	0.00	-1234.00	This Format string has only one section, hence it is applicable to all the entries. (I.e. Positive, negative and zero entries). It just adds two decimals with the value you entered and show the negative sign on the left side of the negative entries.
2.	-1234.10	0.00;[Red]0.00	1234.10	This format string has separate section for negative entries with [Red] color.
3.	-1234.10	0.00_);(0.00)	(1234.10)	This format adds parentheses. _ (Underscore) is used to line up the numbers. (i.e. positive numbers line up correctly with negative numbers that are enclosed in parentheses)
4.	-1234.10	0.00_);[Red](0.00)	(1234.10)	This format adds parentheses as well as [Red] color text format.

How to play with colors?

We can replace [Red] color string with any of the color code specified in the given table (Table B).

For the first 8 colors, we can use the color names directly (they are not case-sensitive)
For remaining 48 colors, we have to use the color code.

Example:

[color 11]0.00;[red]0.00;[blue]0.00;[color 44]general

Table: B – Excel Color palette

MS Office Tuts - Kamaraj Mani