Different prefixes in SIrange

Question

I use the siunitx package for typesetting numbers, units and ranges. When typesetting large ranges of numbers, for example "150 kHz to 8 MHz", I prefer the notation with different prefixes, i.e. "kilo" for the first number and "mega" for the second. However, I have not been able to typeset such a range using the siunitx macro \SIrange.

So far I have found two possibilities: Simply using "kHz" for both numbers. This leads to the (in my opinion) not very nice format "150 kHz to 8000 kHz", which I want to avoid. The only alternative I found was to manually create the two numbers using \SI, as illustrated in the following example.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\begin{document}
    \SIrange{150}{8000}{\kilo\hertz}

    \SI{150}{\kilo\hertz} to \SI{8}{\mega\hertz}    
\end{document}

Is there any way to get an output similar to the second version (separate \SI's), but using \SIrange ? This would be nice, as it allows to globally change e.g. the range phrase ("to") and has a consistent spacing.

Answer 1

I think the shortest form for what you want would be:

% arara: pdflatex

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\sisetup{%
    ,exponent-to-prefix = true
    ,zero-decimal-to-integer
    }

\begin{document}
    \begin{tabular}{l}
            \SIrange[scientific-notation = engineering]{150}{8000}{\kilo\hertz}\\
            \SIrange[scientific-notation = engineering]{100}{50000}{\tesla}\\
            \num{1234.1245345}
    \end{tabular}
\end{document}

You have to set the scientific notation locally in order not to change the normal numbers. You will have to decide, which options can be taken globally and which don't.