Height and weight conversion utility Thread poster: Riccardo Schiaffino
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Do you need sometimes to convert the height and weight of people for your translations?
If so, you might find useful a small freeware utility I've written.
The program (you can find a link to download it
The program (you can find a link to download it here) converts from American feet and inches to meters (and also from pounds to kilos).
If you need more flexible conversion programs, you can find a comparative table of many of them here (scroll down the page, the links are at the bottom of the table), and of course you can also use google's built in calculator.
If you find the program useful, or if you have any suggestion, please let me know. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Amy Duncan (X) 
Brazil
Local time: 22:35
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Thanks for doing this, Riccardo! Just one question: is it Mac compatible?
| | | | | Hate to point it out... | Apr 1, 2009 |
but Google has been doing this for years, search
"convert 5 feet 9 inches to m"
and
"convert 175 pounds to kg"
and you'll get the answer. It's amazing the range they have, and you can type just the units or the spelled out words and it works just the same, i.e.
"convert 13 cal to KJ" is the same as "convert 13 calories to kilojoules"
Also, you can specify the system (British, American, etc.). Try "convert 1 british gal... See more but Google has been doing this for years, search
"convert 5 feet 9 inches to m"
and
"convert 175 pounds to kg"
and you'll get the answer. It's amazing the range they have, and you can type just the units or the spelled out words and it works just the same, i.e.
"convert 13 cal to KJ" is the same as "convert 13 calories to kilojoules"
Also, you can specify the system (British, American, etc.). Try "convert 1 british gallon to liters" and it uses the Imperial system instead... there are endless variations possible!
[Edited at 2009-04-01 18:29 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Riccardo Schiaffino
United States
Local time: 19:35
Member (2003)
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Windows only - and I had mentioned the google converter | Apr 1, 2009 |
Amy Duncan wrote:
Thanks for doing this, Riccardo! Just one question: is it Mac compatible?
Sorry, but it is not... this works strictly on Windows. Even if I rewrote it in a mac-compatibly programming language, I don't have a mac to test it on.
Rossana Triaca wrote:
but Google has been doing this for years, search
"convert 5 feet 9 inches to m"
and
"convert 175 pounds to kg"
I know, and in fact one of the links in my original post is to the google converter.
However, I think it more time consuming to type "convert 5 feet 9 inches to m" than "5.9" and then click OK.
[Edited at 2009-04-01 18:34 GMT]
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Daniel Felice
United States
Local time: 21:35
Japanese to English
Amy Duncan wrote:
Thanks for doing this, Riccardo! Just one question: is it Mac compatible?
If you have Mac OS version 10.4 or later, you can use the Dashboard feature which includes a unit converter widget.
| | | | Gian
Italy
Local time: 03:35
English to Italian
+ ...
| Units converter | Apr 1, 2009 |
Mac OS X 10.4 Help: Using the Unit Converter widget - [ Traduci questa pagina ]With Unit Converter, you can quickly calculate equivalent values for a variety of sizes and measurements. For example, you can find out how miles equal 500 ...
docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2190.html - 22k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
Download The Versatile Unit Converter for Mac - Powerful ... - [ Traduci questa pagina ]Powerful polyvalent unit conversion widget. Download... See more Mac OS X 10.4 Help: Using the Unit Converter widget - [ Traduci questa pagina ]With Unit Converter, you can quickly calculate equivalent values for a variety of sizes and measurements. For example, you can find out how miles equal 500 ...
docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2190.html - 22k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
Download The Versatile Unit Converter for Mac - Powerful ... - [ Traduci questa pagina ]Powerful polyvalent unit conversion widget. Download The Versatile Unit Converter for the Mac from MacUpdate.com.
www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26398/the-versatile-unit-converter - 19k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
Download The Versatile Unit Converter 1.07 - A powerful and ... - [ Traduci questa pagina ]3 Dec 2008 ... The Versatile Unit Converter A powerful and polyvalent unit conversion tool. ... 96 KB / Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Universal Binary ...
mac.softpedia.com/get/Dashboard-Widgets/Calculate-Convert/The-Versatile-Unit-Converter.shtml - 63k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
Cio
Gian ▲ Collapse
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Rossana Triaca wrote:
but Google has been doing this for years, search
"convert 5 feet 9 inches to m"
and
"convert 175 pounds to kg"
and you'll get the answer. It's amazing the range they have, and you can type just the units or the spelled out words and it works just the same, i.e.
"convert 13 cal to KJ" is the same as "convert 13 calories to kilojoules"
Also, you can specify the system (British, American, etc.). Try "convert 1 british gallon to liters" and it uses the Imperial system instead... there are endless variations possible!
[Edited at 2009-04-01 18:29 GMT]
...you don't even need to type that much. Just plug in "5 ft 9 in in m" or "175lbs in kg" or even "11 light years in yards" or "100MB / 24kbps" which tells you how long it will take to download 100MB if your download speed is 24kb/s... or, say, "100 euros in korean won". Once I spent 10 minutes trying to come up with a conversion google can't handle... couldn't find any.
[Edited at 2009-04-01 22:24 GMT]
| | | | David Young (X)
Denmark
Local time: 03:35
Danish to English
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Amy Duncan (X)
Brazil
Local time: 22:35
Portuguese to English
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Daniel Felice wrote:
If you have Mac OS version 10.4 or later, you can use the Dashboard feature which includes a unit converter widget.
Right you are... I just found it in the widget list!
| | | | Attila Piróth
France
Local time: 03:35
Member
English to Hungarian
+ ...
| ProZ converter | Apr 2, 2009 |
While you will find a lot of more complete unit converters on the web, it may be useful to know that ProZ.com offers a converter utility, too.
Attila
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 03:35
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Josh Madison's tool | Apr 2, 2009 |
Riccardo Schiaffino wrote:
Do you need sometimes to convert the height and weight of people for your translations?
http://joshmadison.com/article/convert-for-windows
It is also freeware. What would be really cool would be a cross-platform opensource solution that is a small download and has easy-to-edit conversion config files.
| | | | Riccardo Schiaffino
United States
Local time: 19:35
Member (2003)
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | The only problem with most of these programs | Apr 2, 2009 |
Thanks to everybody for the additional programs posted.
The only problem with most of these programs (and what induced me to write my own) is that they do convert feet and inches into meters, but that none that I tried converts a feet and inch height measurement at the same time: you first have to convert the feet, then the inches, and add the two results.
Google does convert feet and inches at the same time, but it is more verbose:
a) You have to wr... See more Thanks to everybody for the additional programs posted.
The only problem with most of these programs (and what induced me to write my own) is that they do convert feet and inches into meters, but that none that I tried converts a feet and inch height measurement at the same time: you first have to convert the feet, then the inches, and add the two results.
Google does convert feet and inches at the same time, but it is more verbose:
a) You have to write your question in full to see the result immediately displayed:
"5 feet 9 inches in m"
(if you write " 5'9" in m" you only get the usual page of search results)
With my tool, you just use a shorthand: 5.9 [OK]
b) The result you get with the Google converter is not rounded. This, when indicating a person's height (or weight) is not appropriate: you say someone is 1.75 m and 78 kg, not that he is 1.7526 m and 78.0178876 kg.
In my tool this rounding to the second decimal for the height and to the nearest integer for the weight is already built in.
There are tons of much better conversion tools available for free on the Internet. I have two or three installed on my computer, and I use them often when I translate technical documents.
I wrote mine to solve a specific minor problem (I was working on a long translation that indicated height and weight of dozens of people), and thought to share it with others, to help them in similar circumstances. ▲ Collapse
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Attila Piróth
France
Local time: 03:35
Member
English to Hungarian
+ ...
| Great, Riccardo | Apr 2, 2009 |
Hi Riccardo,
Riccardo Schiaffino wrote:
The only problem with most of these programs (and what induced me to write my own) is that they do convert feet and inches into meters, but that none that I tried converts a feet and inch height measurement at the same time: you first have to convert the feet, then the inches, and add the two results.
...
With my tool, you just use a shorthand: 5.9 [OK]
That is indeed very useful. I wonder whether using another symbol – for example / – would not be a good idea; that way you could also allow fractional numbers (even though they are rarely needed in the particular case that you mention: patients' full height and weight).The point can be quite misleading: when I saw the screenshot I thought it was a decimal point – as in "1.75 m" in the second column.
b) The result you get with the Google converter is not rounded. This, when indicating a person's height (or weight) is not appropriate: you say someone is 1.75 m and 78 kg, not that he is 1.7526 m and 78.0178876 kg.
In my tool this rounding to the second decimal for the height and to the nearest integer for the weight is already built in.
I agree, that's a very useful correction. If fractional numbers are allowed (as suggested above), you may need to add one more field where the number of retained decimals can be specified.
Kind regards,
Attila
[Edited at 2009-04-02 17:18 GMT]
| | | | Riccardo Schiaffino
United States
Local time: 19:35
Member (2003)
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Attila Piróth wrote:
That is indeed very useful. I wonder whether using another symbol – for example / – would not be a good idea; that way you could also allow fractional numbers (even though they are rarely needed in the particular case that you mention: patients' full height and weight).
Hi Attila:
Those are all things I plan to add when I upgrade the program:
1) to allow entering the height as 5'9",
2) reverse conversion, from metric to Imperial
3) add British weight measurement (stones), and convert that both to kilos and to pounds
4) user-selectable decimal rounding
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