Creating the 'Mils' Symbol

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated January 18, 2020)

When writing documents that are used in the military or by contractors dealing with the military, it is sometimes helpful to create a special symbol called the 'mils' symbol. A 'mil' is an angular measure where there are 6,400 mils in a circle, compared to the usual 360 degrees in a circle. (Some nations, such as those comprising the former Soviet Union, use 6,000 mils in a circle, not 6,400.)

The symbol for a mil is a lowercase 'm' with a forward-slash through it. (It is impossible to show what such a symbol look like in this newsletter.) The mils symbol can be produced through the use of fields. For instance, the following EQ field will create the proper field:

{ EQ \o(m,\s\do2(/)) }

Note that the forward-slash is set to a slightly larger font size than what is used for the letter m, in order to give a better appearance.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (3506) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Making Macros Run Faster

Designing a macro to make it run faster.

Discover More

Drawing Borders

Adding borders around cells is a common formatting task. You can make the task more intuitive by actually drawing the ...

Discover More

Adjusting Bottoms of Pages

When you allow Word to naturally flow your text through a document, you may find that the text on each page ends at a ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Plain Text Pasting as the Default

Pasting 'plain text" into a document is one of the most common ways of pasting information. Wouldn't it be great if this ...

Discover More

Understanding Hyphens and Dashes

Word provides you with three types of hyphens and two types of dashes that you can use in your documents. Understanding ...

Discover More

Asking for Delete Confirmation

When you select some text and then press the Del key, the text should immediately be removed from your document. If you ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is eight more than 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.