Many many thanks - the clever way works perfectly. Mark
On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 5:44 PM Brian Barker <[email protected]> wrote: > > At 16:11 29/06/2020 -0700, Mark Noname wrote: > >I have spreadsheets from my financial institutions (for tax > >purposes). Some of them do the deposits as positive and the debits > >as negative, and others do the reverse. Is there an easy way to > >multiply an entire column by -1 so I can make them all fit a uniform > >convention? > > Of course. > > Obvious way: > o Suppose your values are in column A, starting at row 2. > o In a new column, enter =-A2 in row 2. > o Fill down the new column. > o Cut or Copy the values in the new column. > o Paste back over column A, but using Edit | Paste Special... (or > Ctrl+Shift+V) instead of ordinary Paste. > o In the Paste Special dialogue, ensure that Formulas is *not* ticked. > o Delete the new column. > > Clever way: > o Enter -1 in a spare cell somewhere. > o Copy that value. > o Select the range of values to be negated. > o Go to Edit | Paste Special... (or Ctrl+Shift+V). > o In the Paste Special dialogue, under Operations, select Multiply. > > >What I've done before is convert the spreadsheets to .csv, use a > >shell script to invert the chosen column and then convert back to > >.ods. This is really clunky. > > There are always unnecessarily complicated ways to solve any problem. > > I trust this helps. > > Brian Barker > -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
