Modifying the Decimal Places in MassHunter with MSD ChemStation DA Report

This Information Applies To: Agilent GC/MSD MassHunter with MSD ChemStation Data Analysis

Issue

When you are using the Data Analysis Report, you may need to specify a certain number of decimal places for your results different to the default decimal places in the MSD ChemStation Data Analysis Report.

The files epa.mac, qedit.mac and rteres.mac control the number of decimal places in the Enhanced and EnviroQuant summary report. These files can be edited to give the precision you need.

Resolution 

In the following sections, you will find how to change the decimal places for target compounds concentration, internal standards concentration, surrogates concentration, QEdit, and Area percentage in the MSD ChemStation Data Analysis Report.

Caution: Before making any changes to the system macro files, back up the file first with a different name.

Target compounds concentration

Edit X:\gcms\msmacros\epa.mac using Notepad. Two code changes are required to modify the decimal format in this report. 

Search for the occurrence of amtfmt$ (there will be 2 of these), and look for the following line:

amtfmt$=”4#.2#”

To change it from two, to three decimal places, modify it as follows:

amtfmt$=”4#.3#”

Once the code has been changed, save the file and generate the quantitation report.

Figure 1. Original Quant Result		Figure 2. Quant Result after changing precision

Internal standard concentration

Edit X:\gcms\msmacros\epa.mac using Notepad. Search for the following line:

format$="3#) 25% "+rtdigitfmt$+" 4% ########2% ###.## 5% 5%"

To change it from two, to three decimal places, modify it as follows (note the number of "#" signs before "5%"):

format$="3#) 25% "+rtdigitfmt$+" 4% ########2% ###.### 5% 5%"

Save the file and generate the quantitation report.

Figure 3. Original ISTD Quant Result		Figure 4. ISTD Quant  Result after changing precision

Surrogate concentration

Edit X:\gcms\msmacros\epa.mac using Notepad, and search for the following line:

format$="3#) 25% "+rtdigitfmt$+" 4% ########% ###.## 5% 7%"

To change it from two, to three decimal places, modify it as follows (note the number of "#" signs before "5%"):

format$="3#) 25% "+rtdigitfmt$+" 4% ########% ###.### 5% 7%"

Save the file and generate the quantitation report.

QEdit

Edit X:\gcms\msmacros\qedit.mac using Notepad, and search for the following line:

sprint pk_amt$ using "#.##",pk_amt

To change it from two, to three decimal places, modify it as follows (note the number of "#" signs before "pk_amt"):

sprint pk_amt$ using "#.###",pk_amt

Save the file and generate the quantitation report.

Area percentage report

Edit X:\gcms\msmacros\rteres.mac using Notepad, and locate the following lines:

csvimage$ = ",3#,3#.###,4#,4#,4#,""%"",7#,9#,3#.2#,3#.3#"

and

image$ = "3#3#.###  4# 4# 4# 3% 7# 9# 3#.2#\% 3#.3#\%/"

To change the report from three to four decimal places, modify the lines as follows (note the number before the last "#" sign).

csvimage$ = ",3#,3#.###,4#,4#,4#,""%"",7#,9#,3#.2#,3#.4#"

image$ = "3#3#.###  4# 4# 4# 3% 7# 9# 3#.2#\% 3#.4#\%/"

Save the file and generate the quantitation report.

Note: For the MSD Productivity ChemStation software, all macros are contained in the path: X:\msdchem\msmacros\

Learn how to operate your Agilent GC/MSD MassHunter Software: Agilent 5977 GC/MSD with MassHunter Workstation e-learning path available from Agilent education