Chapter 2. Usage

General Usage

General usage is straight forward and similar to the way most simple scientific calculators operate, but take note of the following special KCalc features:

Result Stack

Each time you left mouse button click on the = button or press your keyboard's Enter or = keys, the display result is written to KCalc's result stack. You can navigate through the result stack with your keyboard's Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z keys.

Percent Function

The percent function works somewhat differently to that on most calculators. However, once understood, its enhanced functionality proves quite useful. See the section about the percent function for further details.

Cut and Paste
  • Pressing Ctrl+C will place the displayed number on to the clipboard.

  • Pressing Ctrl+V will paste the clipboard content into the display if the content of the clipboard is a valid floating point number.

  • It is still possible to copy/paste by clicking on KCalc's display, but this may disappear in future versions.

Advanced functions

When you start KCalc for the first time, the calculator will only display buttons for basic arithmetic computations.

Under the menu entry Settings it is possible to select a mode for KCalc: it is possible to choose Simple or Science or Statistic or Numeral System mode. Please note, that these modes will slightly change as KCalc evolves.

Button Layout

To give easy access to all the functions in advanced modes in KCalc, many keys have a second layout. Click on Shift or press the shortcut Ctrl+2 to make the second layout of the buttons visible.

History

The history area shows all the calculations done in KCalc for the active session of KCalc. Click on AC or press the shortcut Del to clear the content of the history. To activate or deactivate it, use the item Show History in the menu Settings of the menu bar, or press Ctrl+H.