Formatting options

Formatting options

You can use several formatting options to change how specific types of data will appear. You can use them to specify the following characteristics:

Align information to the left, right or center of a field.
Determine what characters will appear in unused parts of a field.
Specify how you want currency fields to appear.
Specify how numeric fields display information.

The following tables describe the various formatting options:

Numeric formats
Decimal Digits	Number of decimal places (0 to 5).
Negative Symbol	The operating system setting, a minus sign, the letters CR, or parentheses.
Alignment	Number is left-, center- or right-aligned.
Fill	Unused spaces are filled with asterisks, zeros or spaces.
Unsigned	If marked, the negative symbol won’t be displayed.
Show Thousands Separator	If marked, the field will show thousands separators in the number.
Show Percent Sign	If marked, the field will show the percent sign.

Currency formats
Decimal Digits	Number of decimal places (0 to 5).
Negative Symbol	The operating system setting, a minus sign, the letters CR, or parentheses.
Alignment	Number is left-, center- or right-aligned.
Fill	Unused spaces are filled with asterisks, zeros or spaces.
Unsigned	If marked, the negative symbol won’t be displayed.
Show Thousands Separator	If marked, the field will show thousands separators in the number.
Relative Decimal Position	If marked, the number of decimal digits selected is added to the number in the operating system setting. The total can be up to 5 decimal digits.
Show Currency Symbol	If marked, the currency symbol specified in the operating system settings is displayed.

String and composite formats
Alignment	String is left-, center- or right-aligned.
Fill	Unused characters are filled with asterisks, zeros or spaces.
Trailing Blanks	If marked, any spaces that follow the contents of the field will be saved in the table. If the option isn’t marked, any spaces following the item in the field won’t be saved. Leave unmarked to ensure that the same entry made with or without trailing blanks will be stored with the same value.
Leading Blanks	If marked, spaces can be entered as the first characters in the field. These spaces will be saved in a table.
Numeric Only	If marked, only numbers can be entered in the field.
Alphanumeric Only	If marked, only letters and numbers can be entered in the field.
Uppercase Only	If marked, all alphabetic characters will be displayed in uppercase.

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