How to show a plus sign on positive numbers
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 ✓ Verified in Google Sheets (2026-08-30)Display +5 / -3 for changes and deltas — scoreboards, diffs, growth columns.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel (desktop) | +0;-0;0 | A custom NUMBER FORMAT (Ctrl+1 → Custom) — the value stays numeric. +0.0%;-0.0%;0% for percentages. |
| Google Sheets | +0;-0;0 | Format → Number → Custom number format. Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | +0;-0;0 | Format → Cells → Number. Identical. |
How it works
The three format sections (positive;negative;zero) let you prefix a literal + on just the positive branch: 5 displays as +5, negatives keep their minus, zero stays plain (the verification proves the format string via TEXT). Because it's formatting, sums and charts still see real numbers — unlike concatenating a "+" which produces text. The same idea styles deltas green/red: [Green]+0;[Red]-0;0.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =TEXT(A2,"+0;-0;0") in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned +5 — exactly the expected result. We then ran the same formulas in Google Sheets, executed 2026-08-30: a formula-only workbook goes into Google Drive, which converts it to a Sheet and recalculates every formula with Google’s own engine, and comes back out as .xlsx carrying the values Google computed. It returned +5 for the worked example, the same value LibreOffice produced. Both engines’ numbers on this page are executed results. The Excel formula follows Microsoft’s official documented syntax — we do not run desktop Excel.