Aligning numbers when there is a negative

Matthew Brown · 2023-12-04T20:50:24+00:00

There was an error rendering this rich post.

this might already be an idea, and I might have missed it, but is there a way to ensure numbers with negative parenthesis align when exported?

Today, we get this:
(1,234)
1,234

Where the Last parenthesis for the negative value sits on top of the positive value.

Thanks!

Matt

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

All comments

Anastasia Pesyakova

Hi Matthew,

Do you mean export to Excel?

You can test the alignment settings available in the Block format menu of a data view: open the screen in Edit mode, click on a data view, click Block Format button on the right panel.

Thanks,

Anastasia

Matthew Brown

yes, export to excel - we are right aligned so the parenthesis from a negative number appears above a zero in the positive number below it:

76,081,146.80
(1,723,106.02)

or, it's hard to tell when I pasted it in:

123)
123

instead of

123)
123

Crystal Zhao

Hi Matthew,

I agree with Anastasia. I think your answer does lie in the Block Format.

An idea that I had is that you could go to the "Insert Symbol Before" setting and add a space. Can you try that and see if it now looks the way that you would like?

Matthew Brown

wouldn't it always put a space? How would it know if it's negative or not from the view above?

Anastasia Pesyakova

Matthew, correct, if we specify a space in the "Symbol before" field, a space will be added to all cells within the selected block.

If you're using the right alignment on a block, this is the expected behavior. All the text in the value cells related to this block will be moved right. So the closing parenthesis of the negative value in one cell will be displayed under/above the last digit of the positive value in the other cell.

Same with the rows: if you're using the formatting via Row template, the alignment is applied to the whole row - values in all columns will be moved right.

For now in Board we can't apply the different formatting to cells in one block/row based on the value in a cell.

Please also keep in mind if you're extensively using the row template formatting, the reports might become difficult to maintain: you would need to update row templates in case you add new reporting lines, update subtotals formatting, etc.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Anastasia

Anastasia Pesyakova

@Matthew Brown please find more info on formatting here:

https://community.board.com/discussion/16796/format-individual-cells