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How to reverse signs of values in cells in Excel?

When we use excel, there are both positive and negative numbers in a worksheet. Supposing we need to change the positive numbers to negative and vice versa. Of course, we can change them manually, but if there are hundreds of numbers need to be changed, this method is not a good choice. Are there any quick tricks to solve this problem?

Reverse the sign of values in cells with Paste Special function

Reverse the sign of values in cells with Kutools for Excel quickly

Reverse the sign of values in cells with VBA code


Reverse the sign of values in cells with Paste Special function

We can reverse the sign of values in cells with the Paste Special function in Excel, please do as follows:

1. Tap number -1 in a blank cell and copy it.

2. Select the range that you want to reverse the sign of values, right-click and choose Paste Special. See screenshot:

3. In the Paste Special dialog box, click All options from Paste and Multiply option from Operation. See screenshot:

4. Then click OK, and all of the signs of the numbers in the range have been reversed.

5. Delete the number -1 as you need.


Reverse the sign of all numbers at once

Kutools for Excel’s Change Sign of Values utility can help you to change the positive numbers to negative and vice versa, it also can help you to reverse the sign of the values and fix trailing negative sign to normal.  Click to download Kutools for Excel!

Kutools for Excel: with more than 300 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days. Download and free trial Now!


Reverse the sign of values in cells with Kutools for Excel quickly

We can reverse the sign of values quickly with Change Sign of Values feature of Kutools for Excel.

Kutools for Excel : with more than 300 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as follows:

1. Select the range that you want to reverse the signs of the numbers.

2. Click Kutools > Content > Change Sign of Values…, see screenshot:

3. In the Change Sign of Values dialog box, check the Reverse the sign of all values, see screenshot:

doc-reverse-signs-of-values5

4. And then click OK or Apply. All of the signs of the numbers have been reversed.

Tips:

Reverse the sign of values in cells with VBA code

Also, we can use a VBA code to reverse the sign of values in cells. But we must know how to get the VBA to do the thing. We can do it as the following steps:

1. Select the range you want to reverse the sign of values in cells.

2. Click Developer > Visual Basic in Excel, a new Microsoft Visual Basic for applications window will be displayed, or using the shortcut keys (Alt+F11) to active it. Then click Insert > Module, and then copy and paste the following VBA code:

Sub Convert()
Dim C As Range
For Each C In Selection
C.Value = -C.Value
Next C
End Sub

3. Then click doc-reverse-sign-6 button to run the code. And the sign of numbers in the selected range have been reversed at once.


Reverse the sign of values in cells with Kutools for Excel


Kutools for Excel: Over 300 handy tools at your fingertips! Start your 30-day free trial with no feature limitations today. Download Now!
Comments (15)
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This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Tried to do the developer option and I get a:
Run-time error '438':
Object doesn't support this property or method


Any ideas?
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
I have a mac version of excel and the paste special doesn't allow me to do that :-/ dying.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Yes. Yes it does. Enter "-1" in a cell. Copy that cell. Highlight all the values whose sign you wish to flip. Opt-Cmd-V opens paste special dialog box, choose multiply from the Operations section (I also find it beneficial to choose "values" in the Paste Section rather than "all" to preserve any formatting).
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Thx Bro for the useful thread
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Thank you so much, Sir. You helped me a lot. I hope I can return the favor. Thank you so much.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
thank you i had just posted in the SUN system with the srong month. this has helped me to reverse all the 195 entries within 7 minutes...
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
From my perspective it seems there is no foolproof way to simply remove a negative sign: Multiplying by -1 can screw up subsequent cell values if each one is using a formula. VBA requires saving in a different format. Kutools requires you to download/purchase an add-on. You can format a column to show negatives as positives, but it turns the font Red.
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I'm looking to add multiple $ to cells with formulas example (=((I29+AM29+AV29+BH29+CG29+CP29+DS29+AJ78+BA91+BU91+CO91+DK78)-(V25+EF25+EN25))/4 Is there away to do this quickly...
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This is tangentially related. I have a workbook in Excel 2013 that's baffling me. I get a #VALUE! error with the formula =SUM(8-(F4:F23)) in cell F2. When I reverse that, =SUM(F4:F23)-8), I get (#) where (#) is the negative of what I expect. But when I use #Jonathon's formula with my working formula in it, I again get the #VALUE! error. How is this #VALUE! error even possible? What I want is for F2 to be a positive number that's the leftover balance when F4:F24 is less that 8.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Michaelq please use abs function. It turns negative and positive values both to positive one.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Very cool trick. I imported transactions from BofA and AMEX and of course they use different signs for debits. One multiply paste later and I'm all fixed up. Thanks.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
In a New Cell simply Multiply a the Cell-value by -1. It will reverse automatically. No need to perform such a long procedures. e.g if the value in B1 is -25 then in Cell C1 enter the formula : =B1 * -1 :-)
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OMG THANK YOU SOOO MUCH. I have been looking all over the place for a way to simply do this. I was trying to find a way to have Excel take the SUM of a group of numbers and make it negative so that it would automatically do all the rest of the math on the sheet correctly. If anyone else is looking to do something similar, using the information I just obtained from #JAVED KHAN, enter the following function (this is just an example, change the cell references to match the ranges you are needing to use) =SUM(B2:H2) * -1 This will now take the sum of the range and automatically change the value to a negative number.
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You sir have just blown my mind with your Excel Ninja ways, I tip my hat to you sir :lol:
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
The goal was to change an entire range of cells easily, not just a single cell. The paste multiply method is basically a one step procedure to do just that.
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