--- title: "A calculator inside your notes on the Mac" author: Pedro Thomaz source: https://coffeetext.app/blog/calculator-in-notes-mac --- # A calculator inside your notes on the Mac > Checked November 2026 against the official pages linked below. Coffee isn't affiliated with Apple, Soulver or Numi. You have three real options on a Mac. Apple Notes does sums when you end a line with an equals sign, and it's already on your Mac. A notepad calculator such as Soulver is a separate app built around this idea. And some editors, Coffee among them, answer beside the line in your ordinary Markdown notes. Which one suits you depends mostly on where you want the sums to live. ## Apple Notes On macOS Sequoia and later, [Notes can solve maths as you type](https://support.apple.com/en-euro/guide/notes/apda85974595/4.11/mac/15.0). Type an expression followed by an equals sign, such as `47x96=`. Variables work too: write `Lunch=25` and use `Lunch` further down, as long as it sits above or to the left of where you use it. You can choose under Format > Math Results whether answers are suggested, inserted, or turned off. It's free, and the place to start if your notes are already there. It needs upgraded iCloud notes or notes stored on your Mac, and your notes are in Notes rather than in files you can open elsewhere. ## A notepad calculator [Soulver](https://soulver.app/) is one of these. You write in plain text and answers appear in a column beside it, with percentages, unit and currency conversions, dates, time zones, loans and more. It's on Mac, iPad and iPhone, needs macOS 14 or later, and costs $59 once, with a 60-day trial. [Numi](https://numi.app/) is another calculator app in the same spirit, for Mac, Windows and Linux. If you do a lot of this, a dedicated app covers things Coffee doesn't, such as loans and stock prices. The catch is that your sums live apart from the writing they belong to, and you switch apps to get to them. ## In your Markdown notes Markdown has no notation for calculations, so whatever you write is only worked out if your editor does it. Coffee does, in every note, with nothing to turn on. Try it here: *There's a working demo of this [on the page](https://coffeetext.app/blog/calculator-in-notes-mac).* You write in plain words: - **Sums and percentages:** `20% of 50`, `20% off $80`, `$50 as a % of $200` - **Variables:** `flights = €240 times 2`, then `flights + hotel` further down - **Currencies and crypto:** `$30 in EUR`, `1 BTC in USD` - **Time zones:** `Tokyo time`, `2:30 pm HKT in Berlin` - **Dates:** `today + 2 weeks`, `days until 25 Dec` - **Units:** `5 km in miles`, `32 C in F`, `1 GB in MB` - **Maths:** `sqrt 144`, `255 in hex`, `7 mod 3` ### Ordinary writing is left alone The problem with a calculator in a text editor is false alarms: a sentence with a number in it shouldn't get an answer. Coffee's rule is that a line is either understood completely or ignored. "Call Ana at 5 about the 3 tickets" gets nothing. Neither do dates like `05/11/2026`, ranges like `2-3 days`, version numbers like `1.2.3`, or phone numbers. Headings and table rows are skipped, and so is a line that starts with `//`, if you want to keep a sum as a comment. ### The answer isn't in your file Answers are drawn beside the line and never written to the file. Your Markdown stays exactly what you typed, and a note full of sums still reads properly anywhere else. The other side of that is worth knowing. Open the same note in another editor and you see the questions with no answers. PDF and HTML exports and Print do carry the answers, but a Markdown export doesn't, as answers never go into the file. If you need a figure in the Markdown itself, type it in. ### What it needs from the network Nothing, unless a note converts a currency. Then Coffee fetches exchange rates from Coinbase's public rates endpoint. Everything else is worked out on your Mac. If you'd rather not have any of this, there's a Calculations switch in Settings. ## Which to pick - **Your notes are in Apple Notes:** use Math Notes. - **Sums are the main event, such as budgets and estimates you keep and rework:** a dedicated app like Soulver will go further. - **Your sums belong inside documents you write in Markdown:** use an editor that does it in place. There's more on [how Coffee does it](https://coffeetext.app/notes-calculator). --- Written by Pedro Thomaz, who makes Coffee, a Markdown editor for the Mac on macOS 15 or later. It's free for 14 days with no card or account, then €3 a month, €29 a year, or €79 once with two years of updates. More at https://coffeetext.app/llms-full.txt