Number formats & result display

Numlex formats both what you type and what it answers so numbers read the way your region expects. This page documents the Numbers settings tab (Settings → Numbers): the four regional presets, how they change input, grouping and function calls, and every result-display mode — including the custom pattern grammar.

Regional presets

Format	Example	Decimal	Grouping	Function argument separator
System	platform	locale	locale	; if the system decimal separator is a comma, otherwise ,
North America	1,234.56	.	,	,
Western Europe	1.234,56	,	.	; (max(1,5; 2,5))
Eastern Europe	1 234,56	,	NBSP (a space is accepted in input)	;

What differs between formats

• Paste: with paste-with-conversion enabled, glued groups (1.234,56) are normalized to the active format; without it, input stays exactly as pasted.
• Input grouping: 1,234 outside function calls is the number 1234 (a comma group). A decimal comma as a decimal separator exists only in the Western/Eastern European configuration.
• Inside function calls: dot formats (North America, System with a dot) use , as the argument separator (max(1.5, 2.5)); comma formats (Western/Eastern Europe, System with a comma) use ; (max(1,5; 2,5)). A decimal comma as an argument’s decimal separator exists only in comma formats.
• Compact display (1.5M) is a separate setting and does not depend on the regional format.
• The interface language does not control the numeric locale.

Result display modes

The Result display setting applies globally, and can be overridden per answer. The modes are:

Mode	Meaning
Automatic	auto: plain/compact view plus a scientific fallback at |v| ≥ 1e16 (it never switches to engineering automatically)
Decimal	plain decimal with the specified digit count
Scientific	scientific notation (1.5e6)
Engineering	scientific notation with exponents in multiples of 3 (1.5e6)
Fraction	rational fraction (1/2)
Timespan	duration decomposition for time-dimension quantities only (5 min 30 s); anything else falls back to Automatic
Custom	a user pattern (see below)

Additional settings cover the position of the negative sign and of the currency symbol (prefix/suffix, left/right). These apply to display only.

Per-answer override

The Result display setting is global; each answer can override it locally. Right-click (or Control-click) a numeric answer:

Menu item	Effect
Round — a 0…10 dp slider	Re-rounds just this answer, independently of the global 2…10 rounding. The source line is untouched.
Number Format	A local notation for this answer, with Default to clear it. Available for numeric answers.
Reset Formatting to Defaults	Appears only when this answer already has an override; clears it.

The override is stored with the sheet. It changes only this answer’s rendering: the value, any token that references the line (tokens render with their own or the global format), dependencies and totals are untouched. The full menu is documented in Settings & appearance.

Custom patterns

Custom patterns use a fixed ASCII skeleton that is locale-neutral — the output is localized by context. A pattern has up to three sections separated by ;: positive;negative;zero.

Grammar, per section:

• a quoted literal '...'; '' is an apostrophe escape;
• one numeric skeleton: required digits 0, optional #; one dot . (in the integer part, 0 may come after #; in the fractional part, 0 may come before);
• grouping , only in the integer part: the right segment is the primary group, one repeated segment to its left is the second (Indian style #,##,##0). Anything else is rejected;
• one scaler: % (×100) or ‰ (×1000);
• one currency placeholder ¤ — its position places the symbol;
• an optional exponent: E0, E+0, E00, E+00, E-00 (one or two exponent placeholders), and only after the mantissa digits. A bare E00 skeleton (no digit before E) is invalid.

Limits: 96 Unicode scalars per pattern, 12 fractional placeholders, and at most 256 characters of output. A pattern that fails validation is still saved and editable, but it never reaches rendering: display falls back to Automatic.

#,##0.00        → 1,234,567.89   (value 1234567.8912)
0.00' €'        → 45.68 €        (value 45.678; literals live only in apostrophes)
'≈ '0.###       → ≈ 45.678
#,##0.00' €'    → 1,234,567.89 € (grouping + literal)
#,##,##0        → 12,34,568      (Indian style)
#E0             → 1e6            (value 1000000; a digit before E is required)
0.00%;;0        → 12.34%         (positive;negative;zero; value 0.1234)

Invalid patterns — never rendered, the answer falls back to Automatic: 1.2.3 (two dots), #E0E0 (two exponents), 0.0%‰ (two scalers), E00 (no digit before E), E±00 (same), 1,000,0 (bad grouping), # ##0 (spaces are not part of the skeleton), 0.00 "€" (double quotes — only apostrophes), 0.### 'EUR' (space before the literal).

Related

• Numbers & integer bases — the literals this format affects.
• Built-in functions — argument separators in calls.
• Answer tokens — why local display overrides do not travel with tokens.