Changing Signs Quickly

Positive to Negative or vice versa

By Jeff Robson

Have you ever had to copy in a bunch of numbers that were negative on the source sheet but need to be positive where you paste them (or vice versa)?

It’s a real pain having to edit each cell or write a formula so here’s another alternative.

Copy and paste the data to where it needs to go then, in a blank cell somewhere, enter -1.  Copy the ‘-1’ cell, select all the numbers whose sign needs to be changed, then go to Edit > Paste Special > Values > Multiply.

This multiplies all your data by -1 and therefore changes the sign of each one.

Ta da!