Hide and show units

I see it now.

However it does depend on you already having the numerical values having common units. The ability of MathCAD to do the auto convertion of one unit (e.g. ft) to another (i.e. m) is one of its special tricks.

It may be nice to have a step where there is a "hidden" area of the sheet that implicitly has the conversions, so that those conversions can be shown as one (initial) step of the explicit conversion, so that you then do have a step where all the base units and their dimensions automatically cancel out.

It almost requires a step called "SubstituteUnits" (from the symbolic toolbar) where an entry of "ft" is substituted for "0.305 m", and then you do a "cancel_base_units" stage (i.e. hide them) where you are left with the residual numeric values (except for one set at the very right hand side to ensure correctness), and finally that explicit = result with your choice of units in the place holder [this final step may be two steps if you aren't using a coherent unit like Joule for N.m etc. If you use BTU the number won't match]

I suspect it is a more complicated problem than you suspect, especially is you are needing to retain the report for external checking. There are so many ways that people 'like' their reports and so many ways to go wrong when you hide stuff.

I do think that the "hidden area" concept should be made available though. MathCAD already knows which built in units the sheet uses, so it should be simple to show them as conversion factors down to the base units. (e.g. "Show/Hide units in use" menu)

Philip