# CalcTape for Windows – Manual & Guide

> Manual for CalcTape for Windows: the tape, toolbar, custom keys, named values, tabs, find and replace, settings.

- Language: English
- This page as HTML: https://www.calctape.com/en/manual-windows
- Updated: 2026-09-04

> **Beta version – this manual is preliminary** It describes the new Windows version, which is still in beta testing. Features, names and screenshots may change before release, and the test build may differ in places. If you would like to try the new version early: [Register as a beta tester](https://www.calctape.com/en/contact?anliegen=beta&plattform=windows).

CalcTape is a calculator that works like a **paper tape with notes**: instead of
showing a single intermediate result, the whole calculation stays on screen. You
write it line by line, comment every value and may correct anything later –
everything below recalculates immediately.

> *Calculate, comment, correct.*

![CalcTape at a glance](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-overview-en-light.webp)

## 1. The idea: how CalcTape calculates

An ordinary calculator forgets every step as soon as the next one arrives.
CalcTape keeps it:

1. **Every line stays visible.** The tape grows downwards, subtotals and totals
   stay in view.
2. **Every number may carry a comment.** Whatever follows the number is text –
   "net price", "invoice Miller", whatever you like.
3. **Every line stays editable.** Click into an old line, change the value –
   everything below is recalculated at once.
4. **The calculation is a file.** Save it, print it, export it and carry on
   later.

### Quick start

Type two lines and finish with **=**:

```
 +      1,000.00 net price
 +         19.00% VAT
 ---------------
 +      1,190.00
```

That is all there is to it. Percentages, brackets, operator precedence and named
values come with everyday use, but the core is this list of number, sign and
comment.

## 2. The interface at a glance

From top to bottom:

1. **Title bar** with the name of the active document.
2. **Toolbar** – the commands you need most (section 4). Which icons it carries
   is up to you.
3. **Tab row** – one tab per open document (section 8).
4. **Tape** – the sheet you calculate on (section 3).
5. **Panels** on the right: keyboard, "Values and texts" and files, each of
   which can be shown or hidden on its own.
6. **Status bar** with grand total, memory, license note and the slider for the
   font size. Which readouts it carries, and in which order, is yours to
   arrange: right-click the bar → **Customize status bar…**, or **Settings →
   Controls → Bars and panels**. Separators and flexible gaps arrange the bar
   the way they do the toolbar: whatever follows a gap stands at the right edge.

![The status bar](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-status-bar-en-light.webp)

## 3. The tape

![The tape](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-tape-en-light.webp)

Every line has three parts: the **operator** on the left, the **number** and the
**comment** behind it. What you type decides the kind of line:

1. A line starting with `+`, `-`, `*` or `/` is a calculation line.
2. A line with text only is a comment line – good for headings.
3. A line with `=` closes a block and draws its total.

A few moves that make up everyday use:

1. **Subtotal:** a blank line separates blocks; every block gets its own total.
2. **Percent:** `19%` after a value calculates the percentage, `+19%` adds it on
   top.
3. **Delete a line:** remove the whole line – the rest recalculates.
4. **Copy the result:** click the bold total to put it on the clipboard.

## 4. The toolbar

![The toolbar](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-toolbar-en-light.webp)

The row is **freely arrangeable**: the settings decide which commands it shows
and in which order. Three sizes are provided – **Mobile**, **Tablet** and
**Desktop** –, each with an arrangement of its own; the window width decides
which one applies, or you pin one under *Settings → Controls → Toolbar*.
Separators and stretchable gaps let you form groups. Each item shows either its
**icon** alone or **icon and caption** – set per item in the toolbar editor.

The order is yours to set with the editor's arrow buttons, or by **dragging an
item with the mouse** to where it belongs – a coloured line shows where it will
land. The same gesture brings one over from the left-hand list, and dragging one
back there takes it out of the row. On a touch screen, hold the item for a
moment before it travels: the list itself is scrolled with the finger too. Every
editor of this build answers the same gestures – the sidebar, the keyboard panel
and the "Values and texts" panel included.

A few sections have their place from the panel rather than from the list: the
keyboard panel's header is always at the top, its user keys always at the
bottom. Such a row says so under its name, and switching it on and off is all
there is to it.

The commands are grouped: File, Edit, Calculate, View, Appearance and Help.

### The ribbon instead of the toolbar

![The ribbon](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-ribbon-en-light.webp)

If you prefer the commands spelled out and sorted into tabs, switch to the
**Classic ribbon** under *Settings → Controls → Command bar* (or by
right-clicking the bar). It is the band of CalcTape for Windows: two tabs,
*Start* and *Settings*, carrying labelled sections – Clipboard, Edit, Input
style, Mode and Find, then Format, Buttons and General – in which every button
wears its caption. On *Settings* the buttons show the current value, such as
"Decimal places: 2"; clicking "Format…" opens that page of the settings. The
document card left of *Start* opens and closes the sidebar.

The band can be rebuilt: *Customize ribbon…* (right-click the band, or
*Settings → Controls → Bars and panels → Classic ribbon*) opens an editor with a picker for the
tab and one for the section. Sections and tabs can be added, renamed, deleted
and moved; the buttons of a section are picked from the same offer as for the
toolbar, by arrow or with the mouse, and each can stand large (icon above the
caption) or small. The offer is sorted alphabetically or grouped by category,
each group can be folded, and a filter above it narrows the list. The band
shows every change at once; *Cancel* restores the previous arrangement,
*Restore default* the band as shipped.

The ribbon needs room: in narrow windows the toolbar takes over again
automatically. The setting is kept, so as soon as the window is wide enough the
ribbon is back.

## 5. The keyboard and the user keys

![The keyboard](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-keypad-en-light.webp)

The keyboard panel always shows one of three switchable keyboards – the
**K1**, **K2** and **Nav** tabs above the keys:

1. **K1** – the number block with the operators and the memory keys
   (M+, M−, MR, MC).
2. **K2** – function keys: square, root, reciprocal, sign and the tax keys.
3. **Nav** – text and navigation keys: arrows, start and end of line,
   selection, cut, copy, paste.

Which layout a tab shows is picked in the keyboard menu to the right of the
tabs: the entry **Keyboard layout for K1** (or K2, Nav) opens the list as a
dialog – the same layouts as in the mobile app, left-handed variants included.
The choice is always made for the tab that is currently selected, which is why
its name is in the title. The info button ⓘ at the end of each line shows a
thumbnail of that keyboard, every layout that already sits on a tab carries
that tab's name behind it in brackets – the tab you are changing included –
and the choice takes effect on **OK**. **Restore default keyboards**
puts all three tabs back to their factory layouts. That menu also holds
**Edit keyboard**: click a key to change its assignment or size, duplicate
layouts, rename them or restore the defaults.

The same menu carries **Key style** – the shape of the key faces:
**Standard** (rounded corners), **Modern (pills)** as in the Android app, or
**Classic (flat)** with hairlines between the keys; **Automatic** takes the
shape that belongs to the app design. It applies to every keyboard and to the
user keys, and it is in the settings under *Keyboard* as well.

Below the keyboard sit the **user keys**: freely assignable keys for whatever
you type over and over. They come set up with your country's tax rates out of
the box. Add your own: caption, the text to insert and optionally a closing
line break. In the **Formula / Text** field the sequence `\n` stands for a line
break, so one key can insert several lines. For the tax keys, **Reset to
default** brings your country's values back into the fields, and clicking the
**country name** beside it opens the list of every country CalcTape knows tax
rates for, grouped by region. Either way, nothing is written until OK.

## 6. The result card

![The result card](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-result-card-en-light.webp)

At the top of the keyboard panel is the card with the three values you keep an
eye on while calculating:

1. **Result** – the result of the current calculation, in large type.
2. **Total** – the total across the whole document.
3. **Memory** – the value in the calculator memory (M+/M−).

Behind every value is a copy icon that puts it on the clipboard. The card can
be hidden under *Settings → Keyboard*.

## 7. Named values and example texts

![The "Values and texts" panel](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-variables-en-light.webp)

A value you need more than once gets a name:

```
Quantity = 25

 +         12.50 unit price
 *      Quantity
 ---------------
 +        312.50 Total
```

Change `Quantity` and every place that uses the name changes with it. The
**Values and texts** panel lists all names of the document with their current
value at the top. A click inserts the name at the caret; the arrows jump to its
occurrences on the tape.

The small pill under the name assigns a keyboard shortcut: it opens the list
Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+0. A shortcut another value already holds shows that value's
name next to it – pick it anyway and it moves to this value. **Remove
shortcut** at the end of the list frees it again.

Below them are the **example texts** and the **tutorials** – the same ones the
graduation hat in the toolbar offers. An example text asks **Where to insert?**
first – at the caret, at the start of the document or at its end – and then goes
where you said in the open document; a tutorial opens in a tab of its own that
you simply close afterwards. That way the panel has something to offer even in a
document without a single named value.

The example texts are named after what they *contain* (Shopping list, Price
calculation), the tutorials after what they *show*: Getting started, Named
values, Percentages, Subtotals and totals, Comments, Rounding, Order of
operations, Fixed decimals, Formulas in named values. Every tutorial highlights
one number – change it and everything below is recalculated.

Where a tutorial is about a setting, its bar carries the **Open setting**
button: it opens the settings right at the matching row. What you change there
applies to the calculation next to it at once – and is put back as soon as you
close the tutorial.

## 8. Documents, worksheet and tabs

![Documents as tabs](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-tabs-en-light.webp)

CalcTape opens several documents side by side, each in its own tab.

The first tab is the **worksheet**: the scratch pad that comes up at start and is
saved silently when you quit. It never asks – write whatever comes up. It cannot
be closed, which is why it carries no ✕: it is always there when you need it
(**F4** brings it to the front). Anything
worth keeping goes into its own `.calc` file via **Save as…**.

The **sidebar** – the ☰ at the left end of the toolbar shows and hides it –
carries several sections. Out of the box those are the **file list** and, pushed
to the bottom edge, **Import documents**, **Backup / Restore**, **Settings** and
**Info**. Which sections it shows, and in which order, you arrange the way you
arrange the toolbar: ⋮ in its header → **Customize sidebar…**, or **Settings →
Controls → Bars and panels → Sidebar**; here too the offer can be filtered and grouped
by category. The same ⋮ menu, under **Placement**, sets
behavior and position of the bar itself: **docked** as a column next to the
tape, **floating** over the app (a click beside it closes it) or at **full
height** over the work area – in that drawer the rest of the app is blocked
until you close it again, just like in the Android app. *Automatic* decides for
itself: docked while there is room, otherwise floating, and at full height in
the phone layout.

The **file list** in it shows the documents of a folder and opens them with a
click. The **worksheet** is always its first row — above the folder's name,
because it belongs to the app and lies in none of the folders — even when it is
not open as a tab right now. The sort symbol in its header carries the display options next to
the sort order: **compact** (the name alone) or **detailed** (date and size
underneath), the **row style** (list, pill or card) and **alternating row
colors**. All three start on *Automatic* and follow the theme — the Mac themes,
for instance, draw the list in two lines on alternating grounds, the way the Mac
app does. The same settings live under **Settings → Controls**.

### Two documents side by side

![Two document groups side by side](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-tab-groups-en-light.webp)

When two calculations need to be visible at once, split the work area:
**right-click a tab → Move to new group**. The document moves into a column of
its own with its own tab strip; up to three groups are possible. The seam
between them can be dragged, and the same menu moves tabs back and forth
between groups.

The same command comes as a button: **Move to new group** is on offer for the
toolbar (chapter 4) and acts on the document in front of you. It is greyed
while it would do nothing – with a single document, say, or once the third
group stands.

Faster with the mouse: **drag a tab** onto the other group's tab strip. The tab
travels visibly with the pointer, and a line shows where it will land – within
the same strip as well, which is how you reorder tabs. A tab can just as well be
dragged into a torn-off window and back.

A document always lives in exactly one group, so you never see it twice. If the
window gets too narrow for every group to stay comfortably readable, the split
folds away by itself – and comes back as soon as there is room again.

From the keyboard: **F6** moves to the next group (Shift for backwards,
torn-off windows included), **Ctrl+Page↓ / Ctrl+Page↑** step through the current
group's tabs, and **Ctrl+Shift+Page↓ / Ctrl+Shift+Page↑** push the current
document into the neighbouring group – past the last one that creates a new
group.

### A document in its own window

![A document in its own window](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-detached-window-en-light.webp)

Drag a tab **out of the window** and drop it on the desktop and it becomes a
window of its own, right where you let go. If you prefer the menu:
**right-click a tab → Move to its own window** does the same, and that command,
too, can be put into the toolbar as a button. Such a window can go anywhere –
on a second screen, for instance.
Toolbar, status bar and the panels stay in the main window and follow whichever
document you are working in.

Getting back is the same gesture: **drag the torn-off window by its title bar**
over the main window (or over another torn-off one) - the bare part of its tab
strip drags it as well. As soon as the
pointer is over a group's **tab strip**, the window lays itself translucently
over exactly that area – so you see the place and the size it will take – and a line shows where
its tabs will be inserted. Let go and it docks, and the window is gone. Over the
paper nothing happens - so a window can simply be parked on top of the main
window as well.

At the **screen edges** the window behaves as usual: the top takes the whole
screen, the sides take half, the corners a quarter - shown translucently before
you let go, too. The edge wins over docking, so it stays reachable even when the
main window fills the screen.

With **System window frame** turned on in the settings the operating system
moves the window - then its edges and full screen work like for any other
window, and docking runs via the tab strip or the tab menu.

Closing a torn-off window sends its documents back to the main window; nothing
is closed – that is what the ✕ on the tab is for. **Back to the main window** in
the same menu brings a single document home.

### Picking up where you left off

CalcTape normally starts on the worksheet. To continue where you stopped, turn
on **Restore workspace** in the settings (Pro): the next start reopens the
documents you had - in the same groups, in the same order, with the same
torn-off windows and their size and position.

The state is not only written when you quit but kept up to date as you work, so
a crash or a killed process costs you the last few seconds at most.

What comes back is checked first: files that vanished meanwhile are skipped, and
windows whose place no longer exists - one monitor fewer, a different
resolution, a different arrangement - appear centred on a screen that does
exist instead of out of reach. Documents you never saved do not come back; they
are on no disk.

## 9. Find and replace

![Find and replace](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-find-replace-en-light.webp)

The magnifier in the toolbar unfolds a search box (**Ctrl+F**). **Enter** jumps
to the next hit, **Shift+Enter** to the previous one; **F3** and **Shift+F3** do
the same from anywhere in the window.

Everything beyond that lives in the **Find and replace** dialog – the icon next
to it in the toolbar, or **Ctrl+H**. It stays open while you go on working on
the tape, and shows the search itself to begin with:

- **Search for** – the text you are looking for.
- **Look in** – *Current file* searches only the document in front. *All files*
  adds every open document **and** every file of the file list; a hit in a file
  that is not open opens it as a tab and jumps there.

Below them stand two headings you unfold when you need them. The dialog
remembers which one was open.

**Replace** brings the **Replace with** field – what every match is replaced
with. While the heading is folded away, the *Replace* and *Replace all* buttons
are greyed: they would work with a text you cannot see.

**Options** brings the three switches. Its second line names which of them are
on, folded away as well – the switches stay set across sessions.

- **Match case** – without this switch, "Rent" and "rent" are the same hit.
- **Whole word only** – "Rent" then no longer finds "Rental".
- **Regular expression** – the search text is read as a pattern: `\d+` stands
  for a number, `^` for the start of a line. In the replacement, `$1` puts back
  whatever the pattern's first bracket found.

**Next** and **Previous** step from hit to hit, **Replace** swaps the one that
is selected and searches on, **Replace all** does them all at once – and as
**one** step, which **Ctrl+Z** takes back. Under the rows you can read what
happened: "12 replaced", "Not found", or the complaint about a faulty pattern.

> **Replace all across all files** asks first, and for good reason: what
> happens in open documents is brought back by **Ctrl+Z** – files of the file
> list that are not open are written directly instead. The question names how
> many hits sit in how many documents, and how many of those are not open.

## 10. Calculation modes and number format

CalcTape has three modes (switch with **F5**):

1. **Basic Calculator** – the default: you type the calculation, the result
   appears below it.
2. **Adding Machine** – input follows the classic adding-machine tape.
3. **Text Editor** – the tape behaves like a simple editor with a fixed step
   width; good for lists that only calculate on the side. Nothing is calculated
   here, so the total rules appear as a plain `---------------` line of dashes
   in the text – exactly the way they are saved and copied.

The **number format** is set independently: decimal places, rounding (none,
totals only, results, everything), the decimal and thousands separator and the
input style (standard or fixed decimals).

Both **separators** start out as the ones your system prescribes. The list
offers point and comma, and for the thousands separator also space, apostrophe
and “None” — which leaves the digits ungrouped. “Own character…” takes any
character you like; CalcTape says so when one cannot serve, and previews a
number in the two you chose. What you change applies to every document: the
numbers already written are rewritten.

## 11. Saving, exporting, printing

1. **Save** stores the document as a `.calc` file (**Ctrl+S**).
2. **Export** passes the calculation on as text, PDF or spreadsheet.
3. **Print** (**Ctrl+P**) prints through the same pipeline as the PDF export –
   the page matches what you see. Margins, header and footer are set under
   *Settings → General*.
4. **Create backup** writes documents, worksheet, user keys and settings
   into a ZIP file, **Restore backup** reads them back (both **Pro**, and also
   in the sidebar).

## 12. Appearance: themes, colors, zen mode

1. **App design** switches the whole look: **CalcTape Desktop** (default),
   **CalcTape Mobile** – the Android app's colors with rounded pill keys and
   the result bar above the keyboard – or **CalcTape Mobile Classic** with
   cream paper and the classic CalcTape colors. Key style and result bar can
   also be set independently.
2. **Theme** picks the color world: colors, keys and the sheet underneath,
   each light and dark. The toolbar's theme item wears the current palette and
   opens the choice as a preview: every tile shows the app in its colors. **Your
   own themes** come first, then the ones CalcTape ships and the looks of the
   other CalcTape apps (Windows, Android, iOS, Mac) in groups of their own.
3. **Light/dark** follows the system if you want it to. Beside it sits **Use
   system accent color** – the color for selection and switches then comes from
   the operating system instead of from the theme.
4. **Edit theme** (Pro) opens the editor: editor and key colors, the accent, and
   paper, background color, lines and line color. Saving turns a shipped palette
   into **a theme of your own** under a name you give at the top of the dialog –
   the shipped one stays untouched. Light and dark always belong together. A
   theme of your own can be renamed or deleted from the theme sheet with the
   right mouse button, and backups offer it as a part of its own.
5. **Zen mode** (**F11**) clears away everything that is not the tape.

The **font size** of the tape is set at the bottom right, the font size of the
interface in the settings. **Ctrl+wheel** resizes whatever the pointer
stands over: the tape over the tape, the key captions over the keyboard, the
interface everywhere else.

## 13. Settings

![The settings](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-settings-en-light.webp)

The settings live on seven pages:

1. **Format** – calculation mode, input style, decimal places, rounding, number
   format.
2. **Appearance** – app design, theme, light/dark, system accent color, edit
   theme, interface font size.
3. **Tape** – font and markers on the tape, plus the result bar below the
   sheet. The paper underneath belongs to the theme and is set in the theme
   editor.
4. **Keyboard** – key size, key font, result card, key sound.
5. **Controls** – the row **Bars and panels**, behind which the editors for the
   toolbar, the ribbon, the sidebar, the panels, the result bar and the status
   bar stand (one list per surface, a tap opens its editor), plus command bar,
   toolbar, sidebar and the file list.
6. **General** – language, start, saving, tips and the printed page.
7. **Privacy** – anonymous usage statistics.

Every change applies at once; there is no OK button.

**The important ones, or all of them.** Out of the box each page shows the
entries needed day to day. The switch **Show all settings** at the bottom right
of the window brings in the rarer ones – digit grouping, angular unit, the
system window frame, the key style or the row style of the file list. The
switch is visible on every page and remembers its state.

What *does* something instead of setting something is not in the settings:
**About CalcTape** sits at the bottom left of the window, the **tip of the day**
in the toolbar, **Create backup** and **Restore backup** in the *Export*
menu and in the sidebar.

## 14. Keyboard shortcuts

| Shortcut | Effect |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+N | New document |
| Ctrl+S | Save |
| Ctrl+P | Print |
| Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / redo |
| Ctrl+F | Find |
| Ctrl+H | Find and replace |
| F5 | Switch calculation mode |
| F11 | Zen mode |
| F6 / Shift+F6 | Next / previous document group |
| Ctrl+Page↓ / Ctrl+Page↑ | Next / previous tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+Page↓ / Ctrl+Shift+Page↑ | Move the document to the neighbouring group |
| Ctrl+Shift+V | Paste without starting a new line |

## 15. License and Pro features

![About CalcTape](https://www.calctape.com/img/manuals/windows-about-en-light.webp)

CalcTape runs as the **Freeware Edition** for private use. Individual features
are reserved for the **Pro** version – they are marked in the interface and ask
for the activation code when first used.

**About CalcTape** shows the version, the engine build and the licenses of the
third-party components in use.

## 16. Experimental features

Some features ship before they are finished. They are usable and they are
supported — but their behaviour, their settings and the way they store things may
still change from one version to the next. Those carry the marker
**(experimental)** in the interface, in every edition, so that even someone who
switched one on in the Pro version can see that the ground may still move.

Two features are marked that way at the moment:

| Feature | Where | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Comments first | Settings → Tape | Display only: files are saved in the usual order and stay readable by every other CalcTape. Manual spacing inside a comment may look different in this layout. |
| Excel export | Export → Export as Excel | Writes living formulas instead of text, so the calculation keeps working in Excel. Very unusual documents are worth a second look after the export. |

Both are **Pro**, and none of your documents depends on them: switch either one
off and the tape behaves as before, and no `.calc` file is written differently
because one of them was on.

This is not the same thing as **Settings → General → Enable experimental
features** (visible once *Show all settings* is on), which reveals features that are not offered by default at all. What
is behind it changes from version to version — at the moment, nothing is.

## 17. Help inside the app

**F1** or the book icon in the toolbar opens this manual in your browser – in
your language and always in its current version. Your calculation stays open
where it is.

Two shorter routes exist as well:

1. **Tutorials** walk you through the most important moves step by step; you
   calculate along in a tab of your own.
2. **Tip of the day** shows one trick at start – switched off in the settings if
   you prefer.