Microsoft Measurement Converter

Measurement Converter Measurement Converter recognizes commonly used metric and imperial measurement units in a Word document. You can then convert units from one system to the other, for example convert miles to kilometers or pints to liters. You can also add new recognized units and edit conversion rules. Measurement Converter works with Word 2010 and in Outlook 2010 when you use Word as your e-mail editor.

Syntax of measurement units Measurement Converter recognizes measurement units with the following syntax: <float value><space (optional)><unit name>, for example “1,234.678 km.” Measurement Converter recognizes numbers consisting of 12 digits or fewer, including decimal places.

Supported conversions Most conversions are simple multiplications by a coefficient. By default, Measurement Converter supports the following conversions:

Length Area Volume
miles to kilometers square feet to square miles U.K. pints to liters
kilometers to miles square miles to square feet U.S. pints to liters
inches to centimeters square yards to square miles liters to U.K. pints
centimeters to inches square miles to square yards liters to U.S. pints
millimeters to inches acres to hectares liters to gallons
feet to centimeters hectares to acres gallons to liters
centimeters to feet acres to square miles ounces to deciliters
meters to feet square miles to acres deciliters to ounces
feet to meters   quarts to liters
yards to meters   liters to quarts
meters to yards   cubic feet to cubic miles
    cubic miles to cubic feet
Temperature Weight Speed
Celsius to Fahrenheit pounds to kilograms mph to km/h
Fahrenheit to Celsius kilograms to pounds km/h to mph
  grams to ounces  
  ounces to grams  
  stones to kilograms  
  kilograms to stones  

Conversion precision Measurement Converter rounds results of all conversions. Rounding precision differs between conversion rules. Rounding precision is defined for each conversion rule as the number of decimal places in the conversion result. The precision is set to two decimal places for most conversions, and it is adjusted accordingly for conversions where the target value is much larger or much smaller than the source value.

Use Excel for more conversions You can use Microsoft Excel for more conversion features. The CONVERT() formula supports a wide range of measurement conversions in an Excel worksheet. See Excel online help for information on how to enable the CONVERT() formula.

Editing the list of conversions You can add, remove, or modify measurement units that are recognized in Word documents. Measurement Converter reads conversion rules from a Unicode text file (metconv.txt) when Word is launched. You can open metconv.txt in Notepad and edit the contents. Each line in the metconv.txt represents a conversion rule. Each rule is defined by 10 fields, delimited by commas:

# Field Description Field Value Example Note
1 Locale for which the unit is recognized
  1. LCID
  2. “All” if recognized in all languages
 All The LCID is an identification number used by Windows to uniquely identify locales and languages. See Microsoft Word 2010 Help or the MSDN Library at http://msdn.microsoft.com for a listing of LCIDs.
2 Source unit name Text km  
3 Source description Text kilometer You can use the “&” character to define access keys in the description text. For example, “kilo&meter” will set “m” as the access key for this conversion rule.
4 Space between source unit and number “Yes” or “No” Yes  
5 Is the source unit name case sensitive? “Yes” or “No” No  
6 Destination unit name Text mi  
7 Destination description Text mile You can use the “&” character to define access keys in the description text. For example, “mi&le” will set “l” as the access key for this conversion rule.
8 Space between destination unit and number “Yes” or “No” Yes  
9 Rounding precision (number of decimal places in the target) Integer value ranging from 0 to 9 3  
10 Conversion ratio or formula reference
  1. Float value ranging from 0.00000000000001 to 1000000. The value must not include a comma.
  2. “CTOF” (Celsius to Fahrenheit)
  3. “FTOC” (Fahrenheit to Celsius)
  4. “KTOSP” (kilograms to stones and pounds). If the formula reference is KTOSP, then the Destination Unit Name contains two strings delimited by “|”: “stones|pounds.”
 0.6213712  

Measurement Converter always supports conversion rules that have “All” in Field #1. In addition to these rules, Measurement Converter also supports rules with an LCID value that matches the user locale of your Windows Language and Regional Options. For example, if the user locale on your system is set to Russian, Measurement Converter will load conversion rules marked “All” and “1049” in Field #1.

Field #2 (“Source unit name”) contains the recognizable strings; that is, strings that Measurement Converter will detect and tag in a Word document. You can add comments in the metconv.txt on a new line as long as they are preceded by the “//” delimiter.

Note: New rules can be added anywhere in the metconv.txt file.

Number formats Measurements in international documents may use various decimal separators and grouping symbols. Measurement Converter recognizes numbers that use dot or comma as the decimal separator and numbers that use dot, comma, or space as the grouping symbol. If the correct format cannot be determined from the measurement value alone, Measurement Converter will check the current user locale in Regional and Language Options, and it will assume that the measurement uses the format defined there. For example, if the measurement is “2,234 km” and the user locale is French, the value is interpreted as “two point two hundred thirty-four kilometers.” If the same measurement is recognized on a system with user locale set to English, it is interpreted as “two thousand two hundred thirty-four kilometers.” Measurement Converter only recognizes numbers where digits are grouped in groups of three.