I am writing the figure of £1,000,000 in a presentation but finding that my style guide clashes with what looks right.
- 'Million' must be spelled out.
- '£' must be used instead of 'pounds'.
- Numbers one to ten must be written out and not expressed in numerals.
As such, it appears that I should present £1,000,000 as £one million but this looks so odd. Any suggestions?
Best Answer
I have worked for a number of UK academic publishers and they all have'£1 million' (with lowercase m) as their house style. Occasionally, I have seen 1 million GBP. Incidentally, most publishers prefer numbers up to ten (or twenty) to be spelled out. This rule is usually 'bent' if it would create sentences such as: ' ... between eight and 12 people'. The guiding principle is to avoid cluttering the page with numerals whilst making sure that readers don't have to wade through too many spelled-out numbers. It's all to do with ease of reading as well as consistency.