MAC TREAT #56: Fast and Dirty Math with Spotlight

Did you know that you can perform simple calculations with Spotlight in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard? (NOT 10.4 Tiger, as earlier reported, sorry!) All you have do is enter the numbers you’d like to add, subtract, multiply or divide in the Spotlight bar, and Spotlight will automatically update on the fly with the answer. I often do this rather than launch the Calculator app, typically to quickly calculate percentages.

Use the following symbols in both the Calculator app and in Spotlight for performing calculations: + is add, – is subtract, * is multiplication, and / is division. You can use ! for factorial calculations and ^ for exponents. There may be more symbols for other types of calculations; Dan R. discovered that:

“Parentheses work. Try: 2*3+1 and 2*(3+1)

Pi works when spelled “pi” but not the option-p “π” “

If you’re online, it’s possible to use Google for simple calculations just as you’d use Spotlight. To use Google’s built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box.

In Leopard the Spotlight menu doubles as a calculator, very similar to the functionality of the Google search field (but without the need to be online). You can use Google to convert between many different units of measurement of height, weight, and mass among others. Just enter the desired conversion into the search box and Google will do the rest.

See more of Google’s handy little features here:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html#calculator

More about search terms/ criteria in Spotlight in Mac OS 10.4:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/cdb_sptknd.html

And more about search terms/ critereia in Spotlight in Mac OS 10.5:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15155.html