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Excel - Show a Plus Sign Before Positive Numbers in Excel - Episode 521

745 views · Published 21 August 2009 · 2:45 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial: How to show a plus sign before positive numbers.

Welcome back to another MrExcel netcast! In today's episode, we have a question from Dermot about custom number formatting in Excel. Dermot noticed that in a spreadsheet he received, the negative numbers were showing up correctly, but the positive numbers had a plus sign before them and the zeros were not showing up at all. He wanted to know how to achieve this formatting without using a custom number format.

To achieve this formatting, we will use the custom number format feature in Excel. You can access this by going to Format Cells or using the shortcut Ctrl 1. On the Number tab, instead of choosing a pre-set format like Number or Currency, we will go to the Custom tab. Here, you can experiment with different custom number formats, but the one we will be using today has four zones, separated by semicolons.

The first zone is for positive numbers, the second for negative numbers, the third for zeros, and the fourth for text (which we won't be discussing today). If you only enter one zone, it will be used for all numbers. In our case, we want to specify a different format for positive, negative, and zero numbers. So, we will enter three zones. In the first zone, we will put +0; to show a plus sign before positive numbers. In the second zone, we will put -0; to show negative numbers correctly. And in the third zone, we will put a dash to show zeros without any digits.

After clicking OK, you will see that the numbers in column C are now formatted exactly as Dermot described. This is a useful trick to know when you want to customize the appearance of your numbers in Excel. Thanks for watching this netcast from MrExcel. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more helpful Excel tips and tricks. See you next time!"

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Table of Contents:
(00:00) Negative numbers show up negative
(00:25) Positive numbers show up with plus sign
(00:35) Solution using custom number format
(00:45) Accessing custom number format
(00:56) Explanation of custom number format zones
(01:20) Fourth zone for text
(01:30) Two zones for positive and negative numbers
(01:41) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

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