diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index babdd92..81b8da4 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+# corrplot (development version)
+
+## Changes
+
+  *  Document `transKeepSign`, which was previously described by a
+     truncated note, and illustrate it in the examples (#287).
+
 # corrplot 0.95
 
 ## Changes
diff --git a/R/corrplot.R b/R/corrplot.R
index cb2b4a5..2b6b66a 100644
--- a/R/corrplot.R
+++ b/R/corrplot.R
@@ -168,7 +168,33 @@
 #'   transforming non-corr matrix for plotting.
 #'   Only valid when \code{is.corr = FALSE}. The default value is \code{TRUE}.
 #'
-#'   NOTE: If \code{FALSE},the non-corr matrix will be
+#'   \code{corrplot()} maps the values of the matrix onto the colours in
+#'   \code{col} by rescaling them to the interval [0, 1]. For a matrix that is
+#'   not a correlation matrix, this parameter controls how that rescaling is
+#'   done when the matrix contains both negative and positive values.
+#'
+#'   If \code{TRUE}, the values are divided by \code{max(abs(col.lim))}: they
+#'   keep their sign and zero stays at the midpoint of the colour scale, so a
+#'   diverging palette is centred on zero, just as it is for a correlation
+#'   matrix. This is what you want when zero is a meaningful reference point
+#'   (e.g. differences, log ratios or z-scores). Note that the colour scale
+#'   then saturates at \code{max(abs(col.lim))}, so with an asymmetric
+#'   \code{col.lim} the side with the smaller range uses only part of the
+#'   palette.
+#'
+#'   If \code{FALSE}, the values are rescaled linearly so that
+#'   \code{col.lim[1]} is mapped to the first colour in \code{col} and
+#'   \code{col.lim[2]} to the last one: the whole palette is spread over the
+#'   whole data range and the sign of the values is lost, i.e. zero is no
+#'   longer tied to the middle of the palette. A sequential palette is usually
+#'   a better fit in this case. Since the rescaled values are all non-negative,
+#'   the glyph size would carry no sign information, so the methods
+#'   \code{'circle'}, \code{'square'}, \code{'ellipse'}, \code{'shade'} and
+#'   \code{'pie'} are rejected with an error.
+#'
+#'   The parameter has no effect on a matrix whose values are all negative or
+#'   all positive: such a matrix is always rescaled linearly over
+#'   \code{col.lim}, whatever the value of \code{transKeepSign}.
 #'
 #' @param p.mat Matrix of p-value, if \code{NULL}, parameter \code{sig.level},
 #'   \code{insig}, \code{pch}, \code{pch.col}, \code{pch.cex} are invalid.
diff --git a/man/corrplot.Rd b/man/corrplot.Rd
index 3b0324f..5797be1 100644
--- a/man/corrplot.Rd
+++ b/man/corrplot.Rd
@@ -220,7 +220,34 @@ negative.}
   transforming non-corr matrix for plotting.
   Only valid when \code{is.corr = FALSE}. The default value is \code{TRUE}.
 
-  NOTE: If \code{FALSE},the non-corr matrix will be}
+  \code{corrplot()} maps the values of the matrix onto the colours in
+  \code{col} by rescaling them to the interval [0, 1]. For a matrix that is
+  not a correlation matrix, this parameter controls how that rescaling is
+  done when the matrix contains both negative and positive values.
+
+  If \code{TRUE}, the values are divided by \code{max(abs(col.lim))}: they
+  keep their sign and zero stays at the midpoint of the colour scale, so a
+  diverging palette is centred on zero, just as it is for a correlation
+  matrix. This is what you want when zero is a meaningful reference point
+  (e.g. differences, log ratios or z-scores). Note that the colour scale
+  then saturates at \code{max(abs(col.lim))}, so with an asymmetric
+  \code{col.lim} the side with the smaller range uses only part of the
+  palette.
+
+  If \code{FALSE}, the values are rescaled linearly so that
+  \code{col.lim[1]} is mapped to the first colour in \code{col} and
+  \code{col.lim[2]} to the last one: the whole palette is spread over the
+  whole data range and the sign of the values is lost, i.e. zero is no
+  longer tied to the middle of the palette. A sequential palette is usually
+  a better fit in this case. Since the rescaled values are all non-negative,
+  the glyph size would carry no sign information, so the methods
+  \code{'circle'}, \code{'square'}, \code{'ellipse'}, \code{'shade'} and
+  \code{'pie'} are rejected with an error.
+
+  The parameter has no effect on a matrix whose values are all negative or
+  all positive: such a matrix is always rescaled linearly over
+  \code{col.lim}, whatever the value of \code{transKeepSign}.
+}
 
 \item{p.mat}{Matrix of p-value, if \code{NULL}, parameter \code{sig.level},
 \code{insig}, \code{pch}, \code{pch.col}, \code{pch.cex} are invalid.}
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-corrplot.R b/tests/testthat/test-corrplot.R
index 6579eda..e801c2d 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-corrplot.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-corrplot.R
@@ -109,6 +109,32 @@ test_that('Non-correlation matrix', {
   expect_true(is.data.frame(corrplot(M, is.corr = FALSE)$corrPos))
 })
 
+test_that('Testing `transKeepSign` parameter (issue #287)', {
+  M = matrix(c(-0.5, 0, 0.25, 1), nrow = 2)
+  lim = c(-0.5, 1)
+
+  # TRUE (default): the values keep their sign, zero stays at zero
+  expect_equal(unname(corrplot(M, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = lim,
+                               method = 'color')$corr), M)
+
+  # FALSE: col.lim[1] is mapped to 0 and col.lim[2] to 1
+  expect_equal(unname(corrplot(M, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = lim,
+                               method = 'color',
+                               transKeepSign = FALSE)$corr),
+               (M - lim[1]) / diff(lim))
+
+  # without the sign, the value-based glyph methods do not make sense
+  expect_error(corrplot(M, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = lim,
+                        transKeepSign = FALSE, method = 'circle'),
+               regexp = 'transKeepSign = FALSE')
+
+  # the parameter does not matter for a matrix with a single sign
+  Mpos = matrix(seq(1, 10, length.out = 100), nrow = 10)
+  expect_equal(unname(corrplot(Mpos, is.corr = FALSE, method = 'color',
+                               transKeepSign = FALSE)$corr),
+               unname(corrplot(Mpos, is.corr = FALSE, method = 'color')$corr))
+})
+
 test_that('Try different ordering', {
   M = cor(mtcars)
 
diff --git a/vignettes/example-corrplot.R b/vignettes/example-corrplot.R
index 9d24be8..7ec0604 100644
--- a/vignettes/example-corrplot.R
+++ b/vignettes/example-corrplot.R
@@ -91,6 +91,17 @@ corrplot(M*2, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = c(-2, 2))
 corrplot(M*2, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = c(-2, 2) * 2)
 corrplot(M*2, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = c(-2, 2) * 4)
 
+# transKeepSign controls how such a matrix is rescaled to [0, 1]
+# TRUE (default): values are divided by max(abs(col.lim)), so zero stays at
+#   the middle of the colour scale and the sign is kept
+# FALSE: values are rescaled linearly over col.lim, the whole palette is used
+#   but the sign is lost, so 'circle', 'square', 'ellipse', 'shade' and 'pie'
+#   are not available
+corrplot(M, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = c(-1, 1), method = 'color',
+         transKeepSign = TRUE)
+corrplot(M, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = c(-1, 1), method = 'color',
+         transKeepSign = FALSE)
+
 ## 0.5~0.6
 corrplot(abs(M)/10+0.5, col = COL1('Greens', 10))
 corrplot(abs(M)/10+0.5, is.corr = FALSE, col.lim = c(0.5, 0.6), col = COL1('YlGn', 10))