calcservice - as wordservice this potw - is made by christian gruneberg and provides the ability to solve equations in every cocoa-textfield as a service.

Cool hint, certainly, and you can also do calculations with the "Get Result of Applescript" service. Press command-* (command-shift-8).

Or, you could learn how to use an RPN calculator and download one of those, which would allow you to solve any of these kinds of equations of any level of nested parentheses =)

---
In /dev/null, no one can hear you scream

There's no need for downloading a RPN calculator, Mac OS X already comes with a RPN calculator: dc.
All you have to do is to open Terminal.app and type dc.

Also works in the excellent (and still alive!) Graphing Calculator: http://www.pacifict.com/Home.html

Always missed the Classic calculator function in OS X.
You could paste an equation followed by an = sign into calculator, the buttons would play it off for you like very swift ghostlike fingers touched them and the answer would be right there. Could knock the socks off any passing windows user.
Shame this animation is gone in OS X

Yes, I'm sure that would be pretty impressive... if the Windows calculator didn't also do the same thing. Oh wait, it does. It has since Windows 95. Any Windows user you impressed with this must be pretty stupid to not know how to work the calculator in their own OS.

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You can also use Google - just paste the equation into the google search field and google will provide you with the result. Quite handy, as you usually have you browser open anyway.

• Choice of algebraic or RPN (stack-based) entry of calculations.
• Arbitrary precision integers and floating-point numbers.
• Arithmetic on rational numbers, complex numbers (rectangular and polar), error forms with standard deviations, open and closed intervals, vectors and matrices, dates and times, infinities, sets, quantities with units, and algebraic formulas.
• Mathematical operations such as logarithms and trigonometric functions.
• Programmer's features (bitwise operations, non-decimal numbers).
• Financial functions such as future value and internal rate of return.
• Number theoretical features such as prime factorization and arithmetic modulo M for any M.
• Algebraic manipulation features, including symbolic calculus.
• Moving data to and from regular editing buffers.
• "Embedded mode" for manipulating Calc formulas and data directly inside any editing buffer.
• Graphics using GNUPLOT, a versatile (and free) plotting program.
• Easy programming using keyboard macros, algebraic formulas, algebraic rewrite rules, or extended Emacs Lisp.

% cd
% ln -s /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/CalcEngine calc
% ls
Applications    FamRecords      Pfurz           Trash           calc
Desktop         Hurz            Pictures        Work            doit
Developer       Library         Public          Work alias      iDVDWorks
Development     Movies          ResetServices   bin
Documents       Music           Sites           bochs
% ./calc
(259+32)
291
(8.95 * 97.3) + (7.14 * 2.7)
890.113
exp(5)
148.41315910258
tan(2*pi)
-2.449293598294706e-16

Why not make an alias instead? That way you don't clutter up your home directory with symlinks.

Also, if you want easy command-line calculation and you have DarwinPorts installed, try looking at the 'calc' port.

Because I'm a dinosaur.

Grandma. New Tricks. Suck eggs. #import<favorite_metaphor.h>

;)

I hate to be pedantic, but "(8.95 * 97.3) + (7.14 * 2.7)" is not an equation, it's a numeric expression. Equations have equals-signs in them. When I read the title of this hint, I thought it was going to be about pasting things like "42 + 10/x = x + 5" into the calculator, which I assume is beyond its capabilities (though perhaps the hidden Graphing Calculator within it can do something with it).

Neat trick with Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/CalcEngine - now if it only had readline support so I could use the up-arrow to edit a previous calculation....

-Ken

For really easy equations, why not download the Calculator plugin for Quicksilver? It offers both 'bc' and 'dc' as the engine (selectable in prefs). Just pop open quicksilver, hit =, type your equation, and hit enter.

Note that I am the author of this plugin, so this is a plug, but since it's freeware, I'm plugging it because I honestly think it's the easiest way to do simple calculations. Also, Quicksilver rocks.

It's all but replaced calc.app for me.

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So, no one has mentioned that if you open the paper tape (View -> Show Paper Tape) in Calc.app you can type the numeric expression (but not equations) directly into Calc.app. Or you can paste the expression from another app and then use the paper tape to play with the expression. This makes Calc.app similar to but not as robust as Long Hand.

Smittie

One point to add, Calc.app is pretty picky about where you put the equals sign. You either need to leave it off or put it on a separate line. Calc.app isn't smart enough to handle the equal sign on the same line as the rest of the expression.

Smittie