Do math with Soulver

Forget calculators or spreadsheets, use this neat app for faster calculations

REQUIRES

Soulver and a Mac running OS X 10.10 or later

You will learn

The ins and outs of Soulver, including variables, tokens, and formatting

IT WILL TAKE

15 minutes

Soulver is a mash-up of a spreadsheet, calculator, and notepad. That might seem odd until you realize that calculator apps omit context from calculations, and spreadsheets are often overkill for a simple task. Also, both those kinds of apps lack the immediacy you get from jotting down notes, and the humanity of writing in plain English.

By contrast, Soulver is akin to scribbling calculations on the back of an envelope — except all your figures are magically added for you. Documents can include headings and labels, and Soulver even recognizes words such as “per,” “at,” and “by” if you don’t want to use mathematical symbols.

It’s a versatile app when you need a friendly way to deal with figures. Here we’ll walk you through the process of creating a document for tracking expenses from a work trip to the UK, but there are many other situations where Soulver proves very useful. You can get a free trial of Soulver from

acqualia.com. If you like it, the app costs $11.99 for a single user; you can register up to four Macs with a household license for an extra $6.