Format long numbers with a thousand separator?

Question

In most language, long numbers are split into groups of three digits, to increase readability.

In Dutch (my native language), 1000000 is usually written as 1 000 000. In English, this would be 1,000,000.

Now, I would like to know how to use this kind of formatting in LaTeX. I searched google, but I only found some articles that explain how to split very long numbers over multiple lines, which is not what I need.

Is there a package that does this automatically? Or a certain tag I can use for this?

sorry I didn't realize it was latex, anyway searching "number formatting" will help you find something instead of split. for example this post: http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9548 hope it helps — , Apr 23 '13 at 09:45
+1 for narrow space separation. I was taught in primary school in the Netherlands to use a dot, and that the Americans use a comma but that dot is european so we should use this. Later, I learned of other options like space and apostrophe which are unmistakable for a decimal separator and that just sounds like the obvious solution. — Luc, Dec 01 '22 at 20:23

score 65 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 13 '24 at 15:26

65

You can use \, for a thin space if you are entering by hand: $1\,000\,000$

You can also use a package such as siunitx, which inserts appropriate separators and spacing automatically: \num{100000}

Which one you should use depends on what you want to do (and where the numbers are generated); whether it's a few numbers in a hand-authored text or if you are typesetting thousands of numbers in table data where hand editing to add grouping separator is not really an option.

edited Mar 13 '24 at 15:26

FWDekker

107

answered Apr 23 '13 at 15:26

David Carlisle

757,742

Is there any method to automatically apply siunitx to all the numbers of my document without needing to write \num in front of each one? I would like to have all my numbers shown with groups of 3 digits and a small space in between. – skan Oct 27 '20 at 19:52
@skan not really (but you could ask a new question see if anyone has any suggestions) – David Carlisle Oct 27 '20 at 20:02
2

... and how do you do it with siunitx? – Mayou36 Oct 13 '23 at 14:58
@Mayou36 I've edited the answer to answer your question: use \num{1000000}. – FWDekker Mar 13 '24 at 17:12
1

@FWDekker thanks – David Carlisle Mar 13 '24 at 17:22

score 29 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 11 '21 at 16:35

29

There is a good package for all of these formatting issues with numbers, either in text or in tabular: \usepackage{numprint}. Please study the manual, it provides a lot of detailed information. You get the manual usually with something like texdoc numprinton the command line.

A small MWE for numprint to answer your question:

\documentclass[english]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{numprint}
\npthousandsep{,}
\begin{document}
This would be a line with a price tag: \numprint{1000000} EUR.
And as a tabular: 
\begin{tabular}{N{7}{0}}
  1000000 {~EUR}\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

We get this:

As you can see, just tell numprint how the thousand separator should look like. You can do much more, rounding numbers e.g.

edited Nov 11 '21 at 16:35

Dr. Manuel Kuehner

22,451

answered Jan 25 '18 at 16:48

Keks Dose

30,892

4

Note that numprint have an option to specify the unit this way \numprint[EUR]{1000000} or \numprint[nm^2]{5} – Opsse Jul 13 '20 at 17:30
@Opsse I'm astonished, never noticed that option. Thank you! – Keks Dose Jul 14 '20 at 09:00
Am I missing something here? You set \npthousandsep{\,}, but the rendered separator is a space. – crockeea Oct 04 '23 at 17:59
@crockeea \, delivers a thin space. – Keks Dose Oct 05 '23 at 14:55

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 26 '22 at 07:06

This is very interesting exercise for TeX macro programmers. My result looks like this:

\def\num #1{\numA#1\empty\empty\empty#1\end}
\def\numA #1#2#3{%
   \ifx #1\empty \afterelax{\numB}\fi
   \ifx #2\empty \afterelax{\numB{}}\fi
   \ifx #3\empty \afterelax{\ea\numB\ignoreit}\fi
   \ea \numA \ignoreit \relax
}
\def\numB #1#2#3#4{#1#2#3\ifx#4\end\else \numseparator \ea\numB\ea#4\fi}
\def\afterelax#1#2\relax{\fi#1}
\def\ignoreit#1{}
\let\ea=\expandafter
\def\numseparator{,}
Test: number \num{1234567}

The \num macro is expandable.

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 26 '22 at 03:01

3

Well, the package SIUNITX has solved this problem easily. Try\usepackage[round-mode=places,round-precision=2,group-separator={,},output-decimal-marker={.}]{siunitx} in your preamble, and use \num{10000}. For more usages see its CTAN manual.

answered Nov 26 '22 at 03:01

hijinkery

64

1

Add round-pad = false to avoid zeros at the decimal place for integers. – KarelZe Mar 02 '23 at 18:32

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 24 '16 at 18:03

1

Use the package "Ziffer" which helps if you want to write 100000 as "100.000,00" it will show "10 000,00" (no space after the comma and a space instead of the dot)

answered Jul 24 '16 at 18:03

gr9

11

12

Please improve your answer with small. complete document, which will show syntax of using mentioned package. – Zarko Jul 24 '16 at 18:23
2

Your comment would technically apply to the accepted answer as well. – Mitja Sep 18 '17 at 18:43

Format long numbers with a thousand separator?

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