Commas for Numbers

[Alba_Machado1]

I created a number field for magazine circulation sizes, the first one being 900,000. I entered 900,000 and it turned into 900000. It’s pretty standard for numbers that are higher than three digits to use a comma after every third digit from right to left. So how do I make that happen in AirTable?

[Bill_French]

Hi @Alba_Machado1 and welcome to the community!

Alba_Machado1:

It’s pretty standard for numbers that are higher than three digits to use a comma after every third digit from right to left. So how do I make that happen in AirTable?

It’s actually not common for integers to be formatted in this fashion; more of a currency thing, right?

If you need these integers expressed with more readable formatting you can create a formula field that converts them to text and inserts the commas. But this is not a slam-dunk idea; you must consider many variants - 1,000; 10,000; 100,000 - etc.

[Justin_Barrett]

If you want to dive deep into what @W_Vann_Hall refers to as “pretty-print” formulas, here’s the thread he made about it some time ago, including a link to a sample table:

Number and Currency 'Pretty-Print' Routines Show and tell

tl;dr version: A demonstration base offering three approaches to formatting numbers or numerals while providing ‘pretty-print’ formatting (e.g., currency indicators, thousands and decimal separators, and so on). Allows for non-US separators and decimals, as well. The third table supports parentheses for negative values, right-aligned output with a specified number of columns, and more. A while back, in response to this query, I started on what I thought would be no more than a half-hour’s task…

While he tried to create some mega-formulas that would handle lots of possible options, what you need probably doesn’t need to be as heavy. What’s the largest number you would need to format for your use case?

[Bill_French]

Number and Currency 'Pretty-Print' Routines

I started on what I thought would be no more than a half-hour’s task of hunting down some code I’d written, giving it a quick polish, and slapping together a reply.

Two months later…

Both funny and unfortunate at the same time. Ergo - why I said…

Bill.French:

But this is not a slam-dunk idea …

The only difference between my experience and @W_Vann_Hall’s is I had the luxury of hindsight at his expense. :winking_face:

[Chris_Rowe1 · Accepted solution]

I was able to do this by:

1. Selecting currency for the formatting
2. Removing the $ from the 'Currency symbol' field and leaving it blank
3. Setting the 'Precision' field to 1 (assuming you are dealing with integers).

[Scot_Kerr · Accepted solution]

This is the best work around I've seen for this obvious deficiency in Airtable's numeric formatting options, but they really need to deal with this eventually.