How to use it
- Type the number being divided (the dividend) and the number you are dividing by (the divisor). Whole numbers of up to 40 digits and decimals both work.
- Choose With remainder for an answer such as 324 R 2, or As a decimal for 324.2857… with the repeating digits marked.
- Read the worked layout underneath: the quotient sits above the bracket, and each product and difference is written below with the next digit brought down, exactly as on paper. The numbered steps say the same thing in words.
Long division, one step at a time
Long division repeats four moves: divide, multiply, subtract, bring down. For 2270 ÷ 7: 7 does not go into 2, so start with 22. 7 goes into 22 three times; 3 × 7 = 21; 22 − 21 = 1; bring down the 7 to make 17. 7 goes into 17 twice; 2 × 7 = 14; 17 − 14 = 3; bring down the 0 to make 30. 7 goes into 30 four times; 4 × 7 = 28; 30 − 28 = 2. There are no digits left, so the answer is 324 remainder 2, and the check is 324 × 7 + 2 = 2270.
Each difference must be smaller than the divisor. If it is not, the digit written above was too small; if a product is bigger than the number above it, the digit was too big. The calculator’s steps always satisfy both, so they can be used to find where a worked answer went wrong.
Decimals and repeating digits
To keep going past the last digit, write a decimal point after the dividend and bring down zeros. The division then either stops (10 ÷ 4 = 2.5) or repeats forever. It repeats as soon as a difference comes up that has appeared before, because from that point the same steps happen again: 22 ÷ 7 gives the differences 1, 3, 2, 6, 4, 5 and then 1 again, so the six digits 142857 repeat and the answer is 3.(142857), written in textbooks with a bar over 142857. The calculator remembers every difference, so it marks the repeating block exactly; for 1 ÷ 97 the block is 96 digits long. A fraction in lowest terms gives a terminating decimal only when its denominator has no prime factors other than 2 and 5.
When the divisor is a decimal, both numbers are first multiplied by the same power of ten to make the divisor whole: 12.5 ÷ 0.25 becomes 1250 ÷ 25 = 50. This does not change the answer, because multiplying the top and bottom of a fraction by the same number leaves it equal.
Negative numbers
With negative numbers the calculator divides the sizes and then applies the signs: the quotient is negative when exactly one number is negative, and the remainder takes the sign of the dividend, so −17 ÷ 5 = −3 R −2, since −3 × 5 + (−2) = −17. This truncated division is what most calculators and programming languages use; some textbooks instead keep the remainder positive (−4 R 3), which is the same equation written another way.
What we tested
On October 15, 2026 we ran the page’s own functions on 4,000 random divisions (whole numbers up to 30 digits, decimals, negative numbers, both answer types) and compared them with Python’s exact integer and fraction arithmetic. Every answer matched: 1,477 quotients with remainders, 2,523 decimals, 555 of them repeating with the block marked in the right place. All 149,142 steps of the written layouts were checked one by one (each difference smaller than the divisor, each product equal to the digit times the divisor, each new number made from the previous difference and the next digit). Dividing by zero and typing letters gave a message. In Chromium: 2270 ÷ 7 showed 324 R 2 with the check 324 × 7 + 2 = 2270, a three-step layout and three written steps; as a decimal it showed 324.(285714) with a 6-digit repeating block; 12.5 ÷ 0.25 gave 50; 1 ÷ 97 found its 96-digit block; dividing by zero showed a message; the division survived a reload; a 20-digit division fitted a 390 px phone (the layout scrolls inside its box) with no errors. We also checked the check twice: shifting the repeating block by one digit made the 555 repeating cases fail, and writing each product one too high made every case fail.
Sources
Checked on .
Frequently Asked Questions
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