It’s a small issue but I was doing some calculations in Calc and needed to do quick checks on some of the numbers. I highlighted the cells and looked down at the status bar at the sum and continued on thinking it was positive but as worked on the spreadsheet some more, I got suspicious. I thought I had gone into the red on the numbers but the sum was still black. I put a larger negative number in one cell and smaller positive number in the next and selected the cells and confirmed the number in the status bar always stayed positive. Is there an option I haven’t found to show the numbers in red or even with a - in front of the negative numbers?
maybe you came across tdf#116208, which started in 6.0.3, and is fixed in 6.0.6? It’s impossible to tell from your question, where you never mentioned any version information.
For red negatives - I doubt that we have such option; but minus must be shown, unless you see the mentioned bug.
Sorry about that. This problem has been around since before 5.3.7. I updated to 6.0.6 before posting to confirm the problem was still there. I am using it on Mac OSX currently on High Sierra but I think the problem was there on Sierra also.
Ignore this post. I pulled up a blank spreadsheet and the minus sign shows up on the status bar on the calculation so I will need to find what is blocking it on my working spreadsheet. I would hate to start over.
Follow up: My working spreadsheet is a carryover from the Excel days and dates as far back as 1996 so it’s bound to have some import baggage. After the blank spreadsheet test, I started looking for something to explain what was happening. When I looked at the cell format on the spreadsheet and compared it with the blank, I saw the format code “0.00;[RED]0.00” with the “Negative numbers red” box checked. When I changed the blank spreadsheet and checked the Negative number option, it came back with “0.00;[RED]-0.00”. When I used that change, the status-bar calculation showed a minus in front of the negative number but LO Calc does not enforce the format. I could manually remove the minus sign in the format code and the problem would resurface. LO is allowing a format code that probably should not be valid. I’m not sure why my more recent sheets would be using that format code but it’s simple enough to update so that the status-bar numbers show the correct “polarity” - ohh crp you’ve exceeded your budget or you are in the black.