Formatting variables
There are five main format types for variables: Number, Currency, Date, Percent, and Boolean. You can access the format type from the icon to the left of the variable name, or the pencil icon to the right.
Tip: You can edit the format of multiple variables at once by multi-selecting them (cmd/ctrl + click, or shift + up/down arrow), and selecting the desired format option.
- Number #️⃣ : For quantities that aren't percentages or currencies.
- Date 📆 : The number will be formatted as a date. You can enter the date as date(yyyy,mm,dd) or as date(yyyy,mm).
- Currency $: Choose a specific currency (e.g. USD), or select "Custom" if the currency is not listed (e.g. cryptocurrencies). The currency symbol for common currencies is pre-set from the currency you select (e.g. $ for USD), but you can manually change the prefix/suffix.
- To learn more about Currency and how Causal handles FX conversion, take a look at this page.
- Percent % : This expects the variable's value to be a decimal. Example:
0.5will be displayed as 50%. You can also enter directly as "50%". - Boolean ☑️: A variable that can be True or False (1 or 0), displayed as a checkbox/toggle.
Additional format options
You can find these by hitting the pencil to the right of the variable name -> Format.
Custom prefix/suffix (i.e. custom units)
You can set custom unit formats for your variables, and set whether that unit is displayed before or after the number (prefix vs. suffix).
This gives you ultimate flexibility to visually distinguish the units of variables in your models (e.g. currencies, earnings multiples, ratios, time units etc). Note that custom units are purely visual and do not affect calculations whatsoever.
Other advanced formatting options
| Option | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Precision | Automatic, or specify the number of decimal places or significant figures. |
| Human-readable | 1,000 -> 1k, 1,000,000 -> 1m, etc. Human readable is automatically on. |
| Negatives | Accounting negatives i.e. ($100,000) not -$100,000 Red negatives i.e. -$100,000 or both ($100,000) |
| Commas | Comma separators, i.e. 1000 -> 1,000, 10000 -> 10,000, etc. Comma separators are automatically on. |
| Magnitude | Automatic (as entered), or specify the 'unit' (thousand, lakh, million, crore, billion, trillion) you want to display the value in. For example, if you entered 100 but format the display as 'thousand', this will be 0.1k. |
| Format zeroes | Displays cells with 0 values as -, making it easy to spot cells that have non-zero numbers. |