The Number Format Dialog

The Number Format dialog allows you to configure the display of numbers in ProCalc's Scientific [Sci] mode. Select Set Number Format... from the Options menu to access the dialog. All options are explained below, and are also summarized in Balloon Help.

Notation 

   Automatic - select this option to let ProCalc select the notation that best represents the displayed number. Decimal-only notation will be used if the decimal representation of the number will fit in the display, otherwise scientific notation will be used.

   Scientific - select this option to display numbers using scientific notation. Scientific notation expresses the number as a base number greater than or equal to 1 and less than 10, the mantissa, multiplied by a power of 10, the exponent (ex. 1.23456E11 or 1.23456 x 100,000,000,000).

   Engineering - select this option to display numbers using engineering notation, a notation similar to scientific notation, except that the exponent is always a multiple of 3 (ex. 123.456E09 or 123.456 x 1,000,000,000).

   Decimal-only - select this option to force ProCalc to express numbers as a decimal, with no exponent. Note that this limits the display to numbers that can be expressed in 12 or 16 digits. (For a 12 digit display the range would be ±.000000000001 to 999,999,999,999.)

Decimal point 

   Floating - select this option to allow the decimal point to float in displayed numbers.

   Fixed - select this option to fix the decimal point, and force ProCalc to display a fixed number of places (selected from the popup menu) after the decimal point. If there are less than the specified number of digits after the decimal point, the number is padded with zeros. If there are more, the number is rounded.

   Places - this popup menu allows you to set the number of decimal places to display after the decimal point.

Thous. separators 

These options allow you to specify whether to show thousands separators, characters that separate every three places in a number, in the display, tape, or clipboard. The options use the current setting selected in the Numbers control panel, and do not override these settings. If thousands separators are turned off in the control panel, they will not be shown in ProCalc, regardless of the setting of these three options.

   Display - select this option to display thousands separators in the main and minimized displays. The display will be updated to reflect the new setting.

   Tape window - select this option to display thousands separators in subsequent entries in the tape window. This does not effect previous entries on the tape.

   Cut/copied - select this option to include thousands separators in numbers cut and copied from ProCalc to the clipboard. This effects numbers pasted into other applications.

Pad binary numbers - select this option to display leading zeros in numbers displayed in the binary number modes (Hex, Dec, Oct, and Bin), padded to the currently selected word size.