I know that I can go to a Web site to do currency conversions, but that’s not always convenient or possible since I’m often in the air traveling back from overseas business trips when I’m filling out the forms that need this data. I could just write the conversion rates later and use Calculator to figure it all out but surely there’s a better way on the Mac?
There is a better way, and don’t call me Shirley. 🙂
No, seriously, you’re already using the tool that can make this sort of conversion easy: Calculator. It’s far more powerful than you realize and precious few people have ever dug around and found out the true power of this free Mac application.
The key is to look at all the menu options, not just think of the calculator as just another widget. Check out the “View” menu, for example, and you’ll learn that the calculator actually has three very different and powerful skins.
Basic:
Scientific:
and Programmer:
More to the point, check out the options on the Convert menu:
The “Currency…” option is what you seek, but notice the very last two lines of this menu, showing when the currency rates were last updated (back in January of 2005!) and giving an easy option for getting up-to-date values to replace the historical data.
Choose “Update Currency Conversion Rates” and you’ll get a small status window for a second or two:
Then you’ll get an update that gives you just a hint of how many currencies the program actually understands:
Impressive, eh?
Now, let’s imagine for a minute that you’re on the plane flying back from a trip to Malta — you’d been looking for some black bird statue or something — and you find that you’re filling in that old expense report and need to figure out how much in US dollars your 175 Maltese lira per night hotel room actually cost.
Easily done. Enter 175 on the calculator, then choose “Convert” –> “Currency…” and select the existing and target currencies from the pop-up menu:
Click “OK” and you’ll instantly be informed that your 175 Maltese lira room cost an impressive $522.69 per night. I hope they had some nice shampoo for that sort of nightly rate, personally!
Anyway, I encourage you to dig around in the Calculator program and learn just how powerful it is with conversions and the like. If you’re a programmer or scientist, the alternate views are terrific too. I’m just waiting for a “financial” view to help with my own calculations.
That’s weird, Jens. It should be in the Applications folder… ?
Dave,
thanks for the great site.
I cannot find the calculator on my iMac running Os X 10.4.8.
Neither as a widget nor program, neither in English or German, which is the language I use on my.
I assume it comes as a standard with OS X?!
Where do I find the calculator?
Greetings, Jens
My Calculator.app in MacOS X 10.3.9 seems to have lost all it’s currencies except for US$, £Sterling and Yen! I need to get Euros back, is that possible, or is Apple not supporting these functions anymore?
It is nice that the calculator is able to currency exchange, but it still has to download rates from the internet. Given that it has to download data, I find it far easier to point my browser to http://coinmill.com/ which can convert all of the currencies at once.