I would like to combine the following two solutions provided in the question: How to draw arrows between parts of an equation to show the Math Distributive Property (Multiplication)?
The first is not reusable (at least I don't find a way to reuse several instances in one document since only one source can be defined.) The second is. What I am looking is to combine the \target command (this provides a north or south of the node in question, therefore directly targeting the character, like \target{x^2} as opposed to x\tikzmark{a}^2 or the sort.) and the second I can reuse in my example shown below:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{tikz}
\newcommand{\tikzmark}[1]{\tikz[overlay,remember picture] \node ({#1}) {};}
\tikzset{square arrow/.style={to path={-- ++(0,-.125) -| (\tikztotarget)}}}
\newcommand{\sn}[2]{\ensuremath{{#1}\times 10^{#2}}}
\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
\sn{23,900,00\tikzmark{b}0.\tikzmark{a}}{0} &= \sn{2,390,00\tikzmark{d}0.\tikzmark{c}0}{1}\\
&= \sn{239,000}{2}\\
&= \sn{23,900}{3}\\
&= \sn{2,390}{4}\\
&= \sn{239}{5}\\
&= \sn{23.9}{6}\\
&= \sn{2.39}{7}
\tikz[overlay,remember picture] {\draw[->,square arrow] (a.south) to (b.south);}
\tikz[overlay,remember picture] {\draw[->,square arrow] (c.south) to (d.south);}
\end{align*}
\end{document}
This yields:

Of course it is not a systematic (I welcome a systematic response.) way of doing it, but gets the job done. If the arrows could be set either as curves or as squares as they are, it is fine. If the arrows could be closer to the the targeted character that would be fine as well. What I want to achieve is something like the following:


\numofsiunitxto format them in a uniform way throughout your document: you can even customize it so that it uses commas for separating thousands (but don't do it). – egreg Oct 09 '12 at 23:20\,which is the correct spacing; however\numis way better: it also takes care of the "exponent part". – egreg Oct 10 '12 at 09:16\numseems to have an issue if there is a\tikzmarkin the number itself. Probably fixable with some expansion related magic. – Peter Grill Oct 11 '12 at 17:06