Format a cell as arbitrary currency regardless of locale, using VBA

Question

This is really bugging me as it seems pretty illogical the way it's working.

I have a macro to format a cell as a currency using a bit of code to obtain the currency symbol.

Here is the code involved:

Dim sym As String
sym = reportConstants(ISOcode)
    'Just use the ISO code if there isn't a symbol available
    If sym = "" Then
    sym = ISOcode
    End If
With range(.Offset(0, 3), .Offset(3, 3))
.NumberFormat = sym & "#,##0;(" & sym & "#,##0)"
Debug.Print sym & "#,##0;(" & sym & "#,##0)"
End With

reportConstants is a dictionary object with currency symbols defined as strings. E.g. reportConstants("USD") = "$". This is defined earlier in the macro.

When the macro runs it gets the ISO code and should then format the cell with the corresponding currency symbol.

When I run it in one instance the ISO code is "USD" - so sym is defined as "$" - but it still formats the cell with a pound sign (£). When I debug.print the format cell string it shows $#,##0;($#,##0) so, as long as I got my syntax correct, it should use a dollar sign in the cell. But it uses a £ sign instead. (I am running a UK version of excel so it may be defaulting to £-sign, but why?)

Any help greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I just recorded a macro to set the format to $xx.xx and it created this: [$$-409]#,##0.00. Looks like the -409 localises the currency to a particular country; it works without it - try changing yours to .NumberFormat = "[$" & sym & "]#,##0.00"