Format Excel negative numbers without having negative sign and dollar sign in C#, VB.NET

Syncfusion Excel (XlsIO) library is a .NET Excel library used to create, read, and edit Excel documents. Using this library, you can format Excel negative numbers in brackets without having negative sign and dollar sign.

Rather than having negative numbers with a minus sign in front of them, some people prefer to put negative numbers in brackets. If you work with a lot of numbers in Excel, it’s a good practice to highlight negative numbers in red. This makes it easier to read the data.

In order to format Excel negative numbers in brackets without having negative sign and dollar sign and also to format in red color, follow the below steps and use custom NumberFormatting.

Steps to format Excel negative numbers in brackets without having negative sign and dollar sign programmatically:

Step 1: Create a new C# console application project.

Create a new C# console application

Step 2: Install the Syncfusion.XlsIO.WinForms NuGet package as reference to your .NET Framework applications from NuGet.org.

Install NuGet package

Step 3: Include the following namespace in the Program.cs file.

C#

using Syncfusion.XlsIO;

VB.NET

Imports Syncfusion.XlsIO

Step 4: Use the following code snippet to format Excel negative numbers in brackets without having negative sign and dollar sign.

C#

//Initialize ExcelEngine.
using (ExcelEngine excelEngine = new ExcelEngine())
{
    //Initialize Application.
    IApplication app = excelEngine.Excel;
 
    //Set default version to Excel 2016.
    app.DefaultVersion = ExcelVersion.Excel2016;
 
    //Create a new workbook.
    IWorkbook workbook = app.Workbooks.Create(1);
 
    //Accessing first worksheet in the workbook.
    IWorksheet sheet = workbook.Worksheets[0];
 
    sheet.Range["C6"].Number = -100.000000;
 
    sheet.Range["B6"].Text = "\"$\"#,##0_);[RED]\\(#,##0.00)";
 
    sheet.Range["C6"].NumberFormat = "\"$\"#,##0_);[RED]\\(#,##0.00)";
 
    //Save the workbook.
    workbook.SaveAs("Output.xlsx");
}

VB.NET

'Initialize ExcelEngine.
Using excelEngine As ExcelEngine = New ExcelEngine
 
    'Initialize Application.
    Dim app As IApplication = excelEngine.Excel
 
    'Set default version to Excel 2016.
    app.DefaultVersion = ExcelVersion.Excel2013
 
    'Create a new workbook.
    Dim workbook As IWorkbook = app.Workbooks.Create(1)
 
    'Accessing first worksheet in the workbook.
    Dim worksheet As IWorksheet = workbook.Worksheets(0)
 
    sheet.Range["C6"].Number = -100.000000
 
    sheet.Range["B6"].Text = "\"$\"#,##0_);[RED]\\(#,##0.00)"
 
    sheet.Range["C6"].NumberFormat = "\"$\"#,##0_);[RED]\\(#,##0.00)"
 
    'Save the workbook.
    workbook.SaveAs("Output.xlsx")
 
End Using

A complete working example to format Excel negative numbers in brackets without having negative sign and dollar sign can be downloaded from Format Excel Negative Numbers.zip

By executing the program, you will get the output Excel file as shown below.

Output Excel document

NumberFormat property helps to control the appearance of cell values especially numbers in an Excel document. Excel recognizes the numbers in various formats like:

• Number
• Currency
• Percentage
• DateTime
• Accounting
• Scientific
• Fraction and
• Text

Take a moment to peruse the documentation, where you can find basic worksheet data manipulation options along with features like Conditional Formatting, worksheet calculations through Formulas, adding Charts in worksheet or workbook, organizing and analyzing data through Tables and Pivot Tables, appending multiple records to worksheet using Template Markers, and most importantly PDF and Image conversions etc., with code examples.

Refer here to explore the rich set of Syncfusion Excel (XlsIO) library features.

An online sample link to format cell with NumberFormat.