How to Make Negative Numbers Red in Excel

In Excel, while working with large data sets or with a long set of numbers, it becomes difficult for anyone to find out the negative numbers easily and quickly.

So, it becomes important to highlight the negative numbers in red so that anyone can find and read them easily and quickly.

Excel has the option to highlight the negative numbers in red or any other color of your choice and this is a very quick process and takes less than a minute or two.

We have mentioned some quick and effortless steps for you to make negative numbers red in Excel.

Make Negative Numbers Red Using Conditional Formatting

1. First, select the cells or range with the numbers and go to the “Home” tab and click on the “Conditional Formatting” drop-down icon.
2. After that, click the “Highlight Cells Rules” option and then select the “Less Than” option from the list.
   
3. Once you select the “Less Than” option, you will get the “Less Than” window opened.
4. Now, enter 0 (Zero) under the “Format cells that are Less Than” field and you will get the negative numbers highlighted in red color.
5. In the end, Click OK.
   
6. To change the formatting color, select the right-side drop-down icon and select the color of your choice and click OK.
   

Make Negative Numbers Red Using Number Format

1. First, select the cells or range with the numbers and go to the “Home” tab and then click on the dialog box launcher of the “Number” group.
2. Once you click on the dialog box launcher, you will get the “Format Cells” window opened.
3. Now, select the “Number” tab and under the “Category” select the “Number” option and then select the last red negative option.
4. In the end, click OK and you will get the negative numbers highlighted in red color.

In case you want the numbers with two or more decimal places or with no decimal values, click on the “Decimal places” drop-down arrows in the “Format Cells” window to increase it to two (2) or more values or zero (0) for no decimal values.

Make Negative Numbers Red Using Custom Format

1. First, select the cells or range with the numbers and go to the “Home” tab and then click on the dialog box launcher of the “Number” group.
2. Once you click on the dialog box launcher, you will get the “Format Cells” window opened.
3. After that, select the “Number” tab and select the “Custom” option under the “Category”.
   • In case you need numbers with at least two decimal places 0.00;[Red]-0.00
   • In case you need numbers with no decimal places 0;[Red]-0Now enter or copy the code below into the “Type” filed column and click OK.
   
4. At this point, you will get the negative numbers highlighted in red color.
   

Note: Whenever you make any change in the numbers like changing positive numbers to negative and negative to positive after applying this color formatting, Excel auto-calculates those changes and applies the background color to the changed cells according to the already defined conditional formatting.