# Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum > Excel General >  >  How do I add brackets to every cell in Excel?

## Terri

I have a column in Excel that I want to enclose the contents with brackets in
every cell.  Is there an easy way to do that?

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## Bernard Liengme

Insert a column to left (assume stuff is in A)
In B1 ="("&A1&")"
Copy down column
Select all of B; Copy followed by Edit|Paste Special->Values
Now you can delete column A
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Terri" <Terri@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:462238B2-4AF6-4FD0-A91F-AB75CA3F359B@microsoft.com...
>I have a column in Excel that I want to enclose the contents with brackets
>in
> every cell.  Is there an easy way to do that?

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## Earl Kiosterud

Terri,

If you just want the brackets to appear, but not really be in the cell
contents, you can use Format - Cells - Number - Custom:
"["General"]";"["General"]";"["General"]";"["@"]"

Paste it in from this post.  If you have numbers that require specific
number formatting, replace the word General with any number format you want.
The first is for positive numbers, then negative, then zero.  The last part,
"["@"]"  , is for text.

If you want to actually put the brackets into the cells, it will require a
formula in another cell, which could be pasted back over the original stuff
to make the brackets permanent in your original cells.  The formula used
depends on what you have in the cells, numbers or text. If any of the
original cells are formulas, they'll have to be modified to include the
brackets; don't use this method, though you can use the first.
--
Earl Kiosterud
mvpearl omitthisword at verizon period net
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"Terri" <Terri@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:462238B2-4AF6-4FD0-A91F-AB75CA3F359B@microsoft.com...
>I have a column in Excel that I want to enclose the contents with brackets
>in
> every cell.  Is there an easy way to do that?

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## James

You could enter the following fomula in the column next to it

="(" & A1 &")"

Alternatively you could select the cells and run the macro below

Sub Test()
Dim cell As Range
For Each cell In Selection
cell.Value = "(" & cell.Value & ")"
Next cell

End Sub

James

"Terri" <Terri@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:462238B2-4AF6-4FD0-A91F-AB75CA3F359B@microsoft.com...
>I have a column in Excel that I want to enclose the contents with brackets
>in
> every cell.  Is there an easy way to do that?

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## swarupbasak

Nice thank you very much.

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