Format numbers, currency, and units
Choose a number format, pick a currency, scale big figures to thousands, millions, or billions, add a prefix or suffix, and set precision - from the format pane, the axis, or a Prepare column menu.
A chart of raw numbers is hard to read - an axis of eight-digit figures, a mix of currencies with no symbol, three decimal places on a headcount. Golden gives every measure a format, and the same set of controls appears wherever you can reach a measure.
Number format
- Auto (by precision) - Golden picks the scale per value.
- Standard - a plain number with thousands separators.
- Currency - adds a currency, chosen from a searchable picker. USD is the default when nothing is set.
- Percentage.
- Scientific.
- None - the raw value, with no thousands separators and no scaling.
Display units
Display Units scales a figure so it fits, and the menu offers five choices. Auto is the default: it shortens to K, M, or B only where space is tight, such as an axis tick, a bar label, or a KPI card. None shows the full figure everywhere and never shortens it. Thousands (K), Millions (M), and Billions (B) divide every value into that one unit. Whichever you pick changes the presentation, never the value - a measure shown in millions is still summed and filtered on the underlying number.
Precision
Alongside the format sits Decimal Places, which becomes "Precision (sig. figs.)" in auto mode. Pick the precision your reader can act on: a revenue figure to the cent on a chart axis is noise, and a conversion rate to zero decimals is a rounding error.
Add a prefix or suffix
Prefix and Suffix add your own literal text before or after the formatted value - a ms suffix on a response time, a ~ prefix on an approximate figure, a pts suffix on a score. The text is saved with the measure's format, so it travels with the field just like the number format itself and shows wherever the value is drawn, including compact axis ticks and KPI cards.
Where to set it
- The format pane, for the selected chart's measures.
- The measure format dialog, from a measure pill.
- The axis encoding dialog, for how an axis labels itself.
- A column menu in Prepare, which carries Number Format, Currency, Display Units, Default Aggregation, Date Format, and Default Date Level submenus.
Changes made from a Prepare column menu confirm themselves - for example "Currency updated to EUR" - and land in the history as a step you can undo, like any other field change.