Lew Merrick wrote:
All,
Engineering data standards for metric values insist on (A) a leading
zero for all numbers with an absolute value less than 1, and (B) no
trailing zeros. It would be very "nice" if OpenOffice would support
such a formatting intrinsically. ???
The tradition for English/Imperial numeric values is that the number of
decimal places defines the nominal tolerance assigned to it. Thus, a
value expressed as X.XXX has a different meaning than one expressed as
X.XX or X.X. Further, American standard practice (and, I believe -- but
am not positive, British Standard practice) calls for no leading zeros.
Adherence to these standards helps avoid confusion in a bi-dimensional
world. The American standard defining this is ASME/ANSI Y14.5.
Thank you.
.
Lew Merrick, PE
Hello Lew,
I was always taught that if a number is below zero, you put a zero
before the decimal point. This is just to avoid any confusion about the
decimal point.
I was also taught that you put as many decimal points as your accuracy.
This is to stop confusion within calculations and knowing the accuracy
of your data.
If you have 3 decimal point accuracy, then you have to use 3 decimal
places even if the number reads 3.000 so any further calculations know
that you can work to at least three decimal place accuracy.
I have not read this documentation (It isn't free), "ASME/ANSI Y14.5 -
Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing" but doing a search shows that it
is for engineering drawings. What I found on Wikipedia helps me
understand your comments. It does state that tolerances also need to be
indicated. Do you want the tolerances as well?
If you want a request for enhancement, then you should put it on issue
tracker site and post the issue number to the list.
http://qa.openoffice.org/issue_handling/project_issues.html
--
Robin Laing
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