If you want to track financial numbers in a spreadsheet, or any kind of positive and negative correlation, here's how to make your positive numbers green and negative ones red in Google Sheets:
Highlight the column in the sheet you want to add this effect to.
- Go to “Format”
- Then, go to “Number”
- After that, go to “Custom Number”
- In the box at the top, next to the “Apply” button, copy and paste this:
0.00%[green]”▲”;-0.00%[red]”▼”;”-“
The first number is the format of a positive value.
The second number after the semicolon is the format of the negative value.
The third number after another semicolon is the format of a neutral or “0” value.
After that, if you choose to have a fourth after a third semicolon, you can have a format for a text value.
I don't use anything for the text value in my example.
- For the color, put [green] before the first semicolon for the positive value.
- Do the same for negative but with [red].
You can also add arrows showing whether the value is up or down, like many websites do with stocks.
- To do this on Windows, click the Windows button on your keyboard, then type in and click “Character Map” to get special characters.
- Scroll down towards the bottom of the Character Map and hit the ▲, click “Select” and then “Copy”.
- Paste that like this: “▲” next to positive, before the first semicolon. Check the example above.
- Now, do the same for the ▼ for negative.
Finally, click “Apply” and you're done!