Word Processing Units (Advanced tips)

Units should be in a roman font; i.e upright and not italic. Variables such as t for time should be in an italic font. The image shows the two main types of font available. Depending upon your browser and the fonts installed on your computer you may not be able to view the text of this page as intended. The image, however, will display correctly on all screens.

Notice that Times New Roman is a serif font. This means the strokes on each letter have small projections or curves at the end. Arial is a sans serif font (sans means without). The strokes of each letter are simple lines or curves. Serif fonts such as Times New Roman are usually used for numbers and units.

When using a word processor insert a non-breaking space between the number and unit. This prevents the unit and number becoming separated at the end of a line. E.g. Press [Control+Shift+Space] in Microsoft Word instead of just the [Space] bar. Use the help feature of other software to find out how to do this.

Mathematical symbols and Greek Letters can easily be inserted with most modern word processing software. More detail is given in the IT graphing section.

Notice the subtle difference between ms^-1 and m s^-1. The first means per millisecond, the second (with a space between the 'm' and 's' means metres per second. If in doubt use a half height dot instead of the space to signify multiplication of the units. i.e. m·s^-1 for velocity, or write it in the alternative way as m/s.