Cheques, contracts and invoices often want an amount written out in full as well as in figures. This tool spells numbers in English, from small ones up through numbers with 36 digits, including negatives and decimals. It can also give ordinals (twenty-first) or a dollars-and-cents amount, so you don't have to remember whether it's "one hundred and one" or "one hundred one".
How to use it
- Type a number; commas and a leading dollar sign are fine.
- Choose plain number, ordinal, or dollars and cents.
- Read the wording underneath.
- Copy it into your document.
When it helps
- Writing out the amount on a cheque or formal invoice.
- Preparing documents where figures must also appear in words.
- Helping a child see how big numbers are said aloud.
- Double-checking your own spelling of tricky numbers like forty or ninety-nine.
Good to know
- Decimals are read digit by digit: 1.25 becomes "one point two five".
- In dollars-and-cents mode the cents are rounded to two places.
- The tool writes American style, with no "and" inside the number.
How the wording is built
Numbers are broken into groups of three digits, and each group is spoken as hundreds, tens and units followed by a scale word: thousand, million, billion and so on. So 1,234,567 becomes one million, two hundred thirty-four thousand, five hundred sixty-seven. Teens and tens have their own words, and tens joined to units are hyphenated, as in sixty-seven.
Ordinals change only the last word. One becomes first, two becomes second, three becomes third, and most others add th, with y changing to ieth, so twenty becomes twentieth and forty-two becomes forty-second.
Worked example: a cheque amount
For a cheque of 1,250.75, choose the dollars and cents style. The result is one thousand two hundred fifty dollars and seventy-five cents. For 1,001.01 you get one thousand one dollars and one cent, with the singular forms used where they belong.
In plain number mode, the same figure reads one thousand two hundred fifty point seven five. That is how decimals are spoken in English, digit by digit, which avoids any confusion about the size of the fractional part.
Style differences to be aware of
British English often inserts "and" after hundreds, as in one hundred and one. American style leaves it out. Legal and banking documents sometimes insist on one or the other, so check which your recipient expects and add the word by hand if needed.
For amounts, the tool uses dollars and cents because that's the most common request. If you need another currency, switch to plain numbers and write the currency name yourself.
Questions
Can it write ordinals for decimals?
No. Ordinals only make sense for whole numbers.
What's the limit?
36 digits. Anything longer gets a clear message.