Units of measurement Edit

Highlight: Insert a nonbreaking space between the number and a unit of measurement.

Spaces in units of measurement

Insert a nonbreaking space between the number and a unit for most units of measurement. For more information about when to spell out units, see Abbreviations.

Examples

Not recommended: 16ft

Recommended: 16 ft

Recommended: 75 kg

Recommended: 10 GB

Don’t use a space when the unit of measure is a percentage, money, or degrees of an angle.

Examples

Recommended: 55%

Recommended: $3000

Recommended: 130°

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Ranges of numbers with units

For a range of numbers that have units, repeat the unit for each number in the range. Units include abbreviations (such as GB for Gigabytes) and symbols (such as the degree symbol (°)), but not nouns like file.

Examples

Not recommended: -10-33 °C

Recommended: -10 °C to 33 °C

Not recommended: The recommended file size is 50 – 100 MB.

Recommended: The recommended file size is 50 MB to 100 MB.

For more information, see En dashes, Ranges of numbers, and Numbers and fractions.

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Rates

Use the word per instead of the division slash (/) while indicating rates. It’s acceptable to use the division slash where space is too limited.

Shorten per to p only for well-established abbreviations such as Gbps for Gigabits per second.

Examples

Not recommended: The server handles 90k transactions/hour.

Recommended: The server handles 90k transactions per hour.

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Currency

Mention to the reader distinctly what country’s currency that you’re referring to. For example, the dollar sign ($) can be mistaken for US dollars, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, and multiple other currencies. Use ISO defined country or region codes to depict international currencies, if possible.

For more information, see Currency.

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Using abbreviations to denote numbers

In general, don’t abbreviate thousand, million, and billion as K, M, and B or K, mn and bn. In some contexts, using the abbreviations may be more relevant or suited. If you use abbreviations, see Abbreviations in numbers for more information.

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