Is there a free scientific calculator for Windows that can work with fractions? Something like having a frac-dec option and v.v? I need it to work offline and have all the usual scientific calculator functions.
(Obviously ad-free is preferred, but ad-supported is ok)
Precise Calculator can do that
Precise Calculator has arbitrary precision and can calculate with complex numbers, fractions, vectors and matrices. Has more than 150 mathematical functions and statistical functions and is programmable (if, goto, print, return, for).
If you don't mind the lack of a built-in graphical interface and you're OK with "computerish" notation, a great completely free option is the Python programming language. You don't have to learn any programming per se to use the interactive interpreter as a scientific calculator with fraction support. You do have to import various modules that are included in the standard library, such as fractions for fraction support; decimal for exact decimals; and math, cmath, or statistics for functions beyond simple arithmetic.
Without importing anything, you get basic arithmetic with either fixed-precision floating point numbers (IEEE 64-bit floats) or arbitrary-precision integers.
You can easily download free third-party packages for even more sophisticated functions as well as graphical visualization.
I like using a programming language interpreter for calculations in part because it's easy to assign names to intermediate results (much more powerful than a normal calculator's memory functions), it's easy to repeat and edit input that I've mistyped, and it's easy to write my own customized functions that aren't included with any existing calculator. That last part is heading into real computer programming, which is there if you want it, but which you can ignore if you don't need it.
Here's a sample interactive session. The >>> is Python's prompt where you type things in. Note that Python uses # as the comment character, which I've used to annotate some of the lines:
If trial software is acceptable then Casio has emulators for their scientific calculators that supports all features in the real calculator including fractions. You can download from here and use it for 90 days
There are also portable Casio emulators that are shared across many math forums and requires no activation but I think they're just patched versions of the original one. Use at your own risk
There are also TI emulators but since I've never seen a TI in my life (most Asian and European countries don't use and sell TI), I can't tell if they can do fractional math or not
But from the official TI-SmartView™ Emulator screenshot it looks like yes
For some alternatives see
Microsoft actually has its very own solution to your need in the form of Microsoft Mathematics: https://math.microsoft.com/
There is also Smath Studio which is effectively a free alternative to MathCAD if you’ve ever used that. https://en.smath.com/view/SMathStudio/summary
Both are free AND ad-free when I last used them a year or so ago.
Visual Expression Calculator is an open-source cross-platform calculator that supports fractions and mix numbers
