15.1 Overview of the PRINT USING Statement
  The ability to format data with the PRINT USING state-
  ment is useful because the way in which BASIC displays
  data with the PRINT statement is often limited. For exam-
  ple, a program may use floating-point numbers to represent
  dollars and cents. The PRINT statement displays floating-
  point numbers with up to six digits of accuracy, and places
  the decimal point anywhere in that 6-digit field. In contrast,
  PRINT USING lets you display floating-point numbers in
  the following ways:

  .
        Rounded to a number of specified decimal places
  .
        Vertically aligned on the decimal point
  .
        Preceded by a dollar sign
  .
        With commas every third digit to the left of the decimal
        point

  Formatting monetary values in this way provides a more
  readable report. Another use for formatted numeric values
  might be to print checks on a printer. PRINT USING lets
  you print numbers with a dollar sign and an asterisk-filled
  field preceding the first digit.

  PRINT USING also formats string data. With it you can
  left- and right-justify string expressions, or center a string
  expression over a specified column position. Further, the
  PRINT USING statement can contain string literals. These
  are strings that do not control the format of a print item,
  but instead are printed exactly as they appear in the format
  string.

  Digital recommends that you declare all format expressions
  as string constants. When you do this the BASIC compiler
  instructs the Run-Time Library to compile the string at
  compile time rather than at run time, thus improving the
  performance of your code.