How to get greater accuracy out of Word’s in-built calculator.
Recently, we unearthed Word’s hidden calculator. Word rounds its calculator results to two decimal places. This time, we’ll take a look at the two ways to improve the accuracy of Word calculator results. Use an old maths trick or change the Windows settings.
Neither trick is very satisfactory and you’re probably better off using the Windows or Mac calculator app.
Add a multiplier
You can get a more accurate result by changing the calculation to put more digits to the left of the decimal point, for example 114/7 in Word returns 16.29 which is right but not very accurate.
Instead use 1000*114/7.
The answer is 16285.71, so a closer result for your original calculation is 16.28571. Just move the decimal point three places to the left to get the answer you really wanted.
Windows Regional settings
If you want to get a more accurate result, either use a multiplier to shift the result over or change your regional settings:
1. Click Start | Control Panel | Regional and Language Options or Region | Formats | Additional Settings | Customize.
2. Change No. Of Digits After Decimal to the desired value and click OK twice.
For example, if you ask Word to calculate 114/7, it will respond with 16.29.
An alternative is to alter the Regional settings to display five decimal places, for 114/7 the result will be 16.28571 without the need to use a multiplier.
Although the second approach is easier in some ways, you need to keep in mind that by adjusting the Regional settings, all your Windows programs will now have increased decimal accuracy, something not always desirable.
