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• Number of digits displayed on both sides of the decimal point.

• Currency symbol.

• Symbol used to separate thousands.

• Symbol used as the decimal indicator.

• Other information you want printed before or after your amounts.

Format Mask Control Characters

Number Indicator: This is always the numeric digit "9". For each 9 which appears in the format mask, FSG will print one number of a value. For example, a format mask of 9999 will print four numbers.

Decimal Symbol: Most countries use a period as the symbol for a decimal point. Some countries do not. With a format mask, you can specify what symbol to use for numbers displayed in specific rows and columns. For example, the format mask 999.99 uses a period, while the format mask 999,99 uses a comma as the decimal point.

Thousands Symbol: Most countries use a comma to separate thousands. Some countries do not. With a format mask, you can specify what symbol to use for numbers displayed in specific rows and columns. For example, the format mask 99,999 uses a comma, while the format mask 99*999 uses an asterisk as the thousands separator.

Note: For the thousands symbol to have meaning, you must enable the General Ledger profile option Currency: Thousands Separator.

Currency Symbol: As with the decimal and thousands symbol, you can specify whatever symbol you need for currency values. For example, to display U.S. dollars, you can specify a dollar sign. To display British pounds, you can specify a pound sign.

Other Characters: You can include any other leading and/or trailing characters in a format mask. For example, you could have each number print with the phrase "(estimated)" immediately following it.

Example Format Masks

Format Mask	Displayed As . . .
9999999	4234941
99,999,999	4,234,941
$ 99,999,999	$ 4,234,941
£ 99,999,999.99	£ 4,234,941.00
99.999.999,99	4.234.941,00
DM 99,999,999 (translated)	DM 4,234,941 (translated)
Table 1 - 19. Example Format Masks (Page 1 of 1)

Column Width

If you define both a row and column format mask, FSG uses the smaller of the column format width or position width for printing report values. The row format width is ignored.

• Format width -- is the total number of print positions represented by the format mask, including number indicators, decimal symbol, thousands symbol, currency symbol, and other characters.

• Position width -- is the number of print positions you specified in your column definitions. It is computed as the difference between the starting positions of two adjacent columns, less one space, which is automatically reserved by FSG to ensure there is always at least one space between columns. For example, if you used 50 as the starting position for Column 1 and 70 as the starting position for Column 2, the position width of Column 1 is 19.

Printing Rules

• Print as many leading characters as will fit in the column.

• Print as many trailing characters as will fit in the column.

Any remaining spaces are used to print the formatted numeric value. Formatting continues to be stripped, as necessary, according to the next three rules.

• Omit thousands separators.

• Omit the positive and negative currency format characters specified in the General Ledger user profile options Currency: Negative Format and Currency: Positive Format. For example, if you specified the negative format [XXX], FSG omits the brackets and substitutes the negative format -XXX instead.

• If, after all printing rules have been applied, the column width is still too small to accommodate the number, FSG will print pound signs instead of the amount.

Note: FSG will never alter an amount by truncating it.

Currency Formats

• Standard and extended precision in the Currencies window.

• Currency profile options in the Personal Profile Values window.

See Also