Specifying formats for fields containing numbersYou can control how FileMaker Pro displays the values in number fields, calculation fields with numeric results, and summary fields.
1. In Layout mode, select one or more fields that display numeric values.
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3. In the Data Formatting area, click Number , then select the formats you want to use from the Format list.
As a Boolean value (a value that is generally expressed as one of two values — zero or non-zero) To change the default values, type a new value (up to seven characters) for Show non-zeros as and Show zeros as (such as “Yes” and “No”).
• To specify that each value be displayed with the same number of places, select Fixed number of decimals and type a value. (A positive value specifies places to the right of the decimal place, a negative value specifies places to the left.)
• To specify a unit for a number, type a Symbol to display for the unit and choose one of the options in the Notation list to specify where to insert the symbol. Some examples of symbols are cm (centimeter), km (kilometer), kg (kilogram), or ft (foot).
• To specify special formatting for negative numbers, in the Negative area, choose a notation. To display negative numbers in color (for example, red), choose a color.
• To change the character that separates the whole value of the number from the fractional part, for Separators, type a character.
• To include a character to separate every 3 digits, click Use thousands separator and type a character.
• To include a Kanji separator, click Kanji separator and choose either the every 4th place or full notation options. To change the currency symbol, for Symbol, type a character. Using the current system formats for decimals and thousands separators For Format, select Decimal, Currency, or Percent. Then, for Numeral type, choose Half-Width, Full-Width, Kanji Numeral (Modern), or Kanji Numeral. Select text options using the Appearance tab of the Inspector. See Specifying text formats for fields.
• If you specify General format and the field value is a number with 10 or more digits, FileMaker Pro displays the number using scientific notation, or rounds the number, or both, if necessary, to fit within the 10-character maximum for the default field boundaries. When a number is expressed in scientific notation, you see a decimal number expressed as a power of 10, for example, 123,456,789,000 could be displayed as 1.2346E+11. If the field value is a number of fewer than 10 digits, specifying General format produces the same result as specifying As entered.
• Numbers formatted as decimals are rounded when the number of decimal digits exceeds the specified fixed number of decimal digits. (For example, if you enter 789.78 and you specify 3 fixed digits, you see 789.780 in the field; if you specify 0 fixed digits, you see 790; if you specify -2 fixed digits, you see 800.) However, FileMaker Pro stores and uses the unrounded number for calculations and summaries.
• Only numbers are displayed and printed in a number field formatted as decimal (except for separators and notations specified in the Inspector). To display text and symbols (for example, @1.98 per pound) in a number field, select As entered. If you use the field in a calculation or summary, only the numeric value is used.
• If you specify the format as Boolean, any values in the number field that contain non-numeric data display as blank because they do not contain any numeric content. For example, the value “ABC” would display as blank. However, non-numeric field content returns false in calculations.