The Resource Center contains a wealth of information to help you get the most ou t of Mathcad.

Choose Resource Center from the Help menu for access to examples, tips, reference material, tutorials, and more. To customize the Standard, Formatting, or Math toolbar, click on the toolbar wit h the right mouse button and choose Customize from the pop-up menu. For context-sensitive help on any function, click on the function name and press [F1]. To see the value of any numerical answer to full precision, click on the answer, press [Ctrl][Shift]N and look at the status line. The Mathcad web site at www.mathcad.com is an excellent resource for sample file s, Mathcad-related developments, technical support, and the latest product infor mation. You can work with matrices of up to 8 million elements to the extent that the me mory on your computer allows. Mathcad indexes vectors starting with 0 by default. To start indexing at 1, go t o Math/Options/Built-in Variables and change ORIGIN to 1. For a list of built-in functions, each with a description, choose Function from the Insert menu. To evaluate an expression numerically, use the = key. To get a symbolic answer, press [Ctrl][Period] to get the --> operator. The Minimize and Maximize functions can be used to solve linear programming prob lems. Mathcad supports the Microsoft IntelliMouse and compatible pointing devices. Tur ning the wheel scrolls the window one line vertically for each click of the whee l. If you press [Shift] and turn the wheel, the window scrolls horizontally. To quickly plot a function, just type the function using any unassigned letter o r word as the independent variable. Then click on the xy plot button in the Grap h toolbar, and click outside the plot. Mathcad uses -10 to 10 as the default ran ge for the independent variable. You can solve systems of up to 200 nonlinear equations using the find, minerr, m inimize, or maximize functions. To change the units in which a plot is displayed, divide the argument on the plo t by the units in which you want it plotted. There are hundreds of standard tables for formulas and constants inside the Reso urce Center. Choose Resource Center from the Help menu to access them. To make the Resource Center come up automatically every time you start Mathcad, choose Preferences from the View menu, click on the General tab, and click "Show Resource Center on startup." You can expand nested array notation in a matrix result by double-clicking on th e result and checking "Expand nested arrays" in the Result Format dialog box. You can create your own functions in C or C++ and use them in Mathcad. Refer to the Developer's Reference (under the Help menu) for information about creating a user-DLL. You can save Mathcad worksheets in HTML with embedded MathML format. This enable s you and others to open your worksheets in a browser. You can also read your th ese files back into Mathcad with no loss of information. Use the ODBC Read component to read data from a database that supports SQL in th e ODBC driver. You can insert buttons, textboxes, sliders, and other controls into your Mathcad worksheets. These controls help users interface with variables. To enlarge the selection in an expression, press [Space]. By default, Mathcad uses standard Windows keystrokes for operations such as Prin t, Copy, Paste, Undo, and Find. If instead you want to use keystrokes available in prior versions of Mathcad, choose Preferences from the View menu and click "U se standard Windows shortcut keys" on the General tab to remove the check mark. To create a spreadsheet-like table of numbers, click in a blank part of your wor ksheet, choose Component from the Insert menu and click Input Table. Many functions and operators that accept scalar arguments also accept vector arg uments for performing an operation on many scalars at once. For example, sin(v), where v is a vector, gives you the sine of all the elements in v.

To select any region with the dashed selection rectangle, click on the region wh ile holding down the [Ctrl] key. To move down from an exponent press [Space] or the right arrow. To get context-sensitive help on menus, press [Shift][F1], then click on the men u item. Press [Shift][F1] to leave context-sensitive help. Choose Resource Center from the Help menu to access over 300 QuickSheets demonst rating analyses and tasks frequently performed in Mathcad. To select a string variable, click in the string and use the right arrow key to move the vertical selection cursor just to the right of the last pair of quotes. To display a result in binary, octal, or hexidecimal, double-click on the result to bring up the Result Format dialog box and change the Radix setting. When you type a word and press [Space], Mathcad starts a text region for you. To type a Greek letter, type the Roman equivalent and then press [Ctrl] G to cha nge it to Greek. For example, to type the Greek letter pi, type p [Ctrl] G. You can format numeric results as fractions or mixed numbers. To do so, click on a result and select Result... from the Format menu. Increase or decrease the le vel of accuracy to get a more precise fractional equivalent of your result. Use the Data Acquisition component to read data from and send data to measuremen t devices connected to your system. You can separate overlapping regions by choosing Separate Regions from the Forma t menu. You can choose Repaginate Now from the Format menu if you want Mathcad to adjust pagebreaks so that no regions overlap the pagebreaks. When you choose Repaginate Now from the Format menu, Mathcad recalculates any un calculated parts of the worksheet. Be careful when choosing this option for a wo rksheet containing many time-consuming calculations. You can communicate with other Mathcad users through the Collaboratory, an inter active World Wide Web service. To access it, choose Resource Center from the Hel p menu and click on the Collaboratory button. To move out of the denominator of a fraction, press [Space]. You can customize your mode of calculation in a worksheet. Select Options from t he Math menu and use the Calculation tab to set performance preferences, and ena ble/disable strict singularity checking, optimization, or automatic calculation. For help on an error message, press [F1] while the message is displayed. For more information on statistics, problem-solving, and programming, choose Res ource Center from the Help menu. To bring data in from a data file, insert the File Read or Write component by ch oosing Component from the Insert menu. To undo a sequence of editing changes in a math region, press [Alt][Backspace]. Note that this works only while you're still editing the expression, before you have clicked away. To shift the insertion bar from one side of a selected expression to the other, press [Insert]. To quickly delete a region, click on it and press [Ctrl] D or choose Delete from the Edit menu. Be careful using this option, however, because you can't undo th is operation. You can access regularly-updated information through Web links in the Resource C enter. Choose Resource Center from the Help menu. One way to evaluate a derivative symbolically is to fill in the derivative opera tor and then press [Ctrl] [Period]. When editing math expressions you can check the status messages at the bottom le ft of the screen for helpful suggestions. To delete an operator in an expression, position the vertical editing line betwe en the operator and the operand. Press [Delete] to remove an operator to the rig ht of the vertical line or [Bksp] to remove an operator to the left. You can create a new line within the same paragraph in a text region by typing [ Shift] [Enter]. To create a new line in a new paragraph, type [Enter]. You can make a text region occupy the entire width of a page by clicking on it w ith the right mouse button, choosing Properties from the pop-up menu, and clicki

ng "Occupy Page Width" on the Text tab. To set up an equation for a symbolic solution, use [Ctrl]=. This inserts the bol d (boolean) equals sign. One way to find the symbolic derivative of an expression is to type the expressi on without including the derivative operator, click on the variable of integrati on, and choose Variable/Differentiate from the Symbolics menu. The Mathcad CD contains an online version of the Mathcad User's Guide with Refer ence Manual. Use Adobe Acrobat to view them. You can display any matrix as a grayscale image by typing its name and choosing Picture from the Insert menu. Since pixel values run from 0 to 255 you may want to multiply your matrix by a scale factor. To open the MathSoft Collaboratory, choose Resource Center from the Help menu an d click on the Collaboratory button. Mathcad has two kinds of subscripts. To identify the array element x sub 3, type x[3. (This will be the fourth element if you're using the default origin of 0). To subscript a variable that isn't an array, use a period instead of [. For exa mple x.init will give you the variable x sub init. Enabling lighting on a 3D plot can drastically change its color. For best result s, be sure the plot's fill color is white. Otherwise, the plot absorbs and refle cts light depending on its fill color. To change the units in an answer from the default units, click once on the answe r, click on the placeholder that appears to the right of the answer, and then ty pe the name of the unit you want to use. When you click away, Mathcad will conve rt the answer to your chosen units. When pasting an object into Mathcad from another application, choose Paste Speci al from the Edit menu so you can specify the type of object you'd like to paste. Mathcad's default unit for angle measure is radians. For example, if you type si n(3) Mathcad assumes you're using radians. To find the sine of 3 degrees, type s in(3deg)=. To turn an answer in radians into degrees, type deg in the placeholder to the ri ght of the answer. The Release Notes document (Relnotes.rtf located in your Mathcad folder) contain s the most up-to-date information on Mathcad as well as last minute corrections to the documentation. To plot a horizontal line simply enter a constant value in the vertical axis pla ceholder on an x-y plot and enter any variable name not already in use in the ho rizontal axis placeholder. To apply a function or operation to a vector or matrix of values, use [Ctrl][-]. This puts the vectorize arrow over the expression. To completely hide one or more regions from someone reading your worksheet, inse rt an area, place the regions inside it, and collapse the area. Then set the are a properties so that there is no name, icon, border, or timestamp on the area. Scalar and vector answers can be copied and pasted just like any other expressio n. Just select the result and choose Copy from the Edit menu or press [Ctrl]c. If you can't remember the abbreviation for a particular unit, choose Unit from t he Insert menu and look in the Insert Unit dialog box. The Reference feature allows you to access functions and variables defined in wo rksheets other than the current one. Choose Reference from the Insert menu and i ndicate the name of a worksheet to reference. The contents of that worksheet are now used at the point where you inserted the reference. When you animate a plot it's a good idea to fix the axes limits by entering your own values in the four axes limit placeholders. This prevents the plot from res caling the axes during the animation. You can fix axes limits for 3D plots in th e Axes tab of the Format dialog box. Variables defined inside a Mathcad program are local - their values are known on ly inside the program. However, the program knows the values of any variables yo u have defined anywhere above or to the left of the program in your worksheet. You can find and/or replace extended characters using the Find and Replace dialo g boxes. Enter ^t for a Tab, ^p for a Return, ^l for a line break, and ^\ for a backslash.

If you want to keep a particular region from calculating, click in the region wi th the right mouse button, choose Properties from the pop-up menu, then check Di sable Evaluation in the Calculation tab. A small box appears to the right of the equation to indicate that it has been turned off. There are three different "equals" signs in Mathcad. Type = when you want to see a numerical answer. Type : to define a variable; Mathcad puts in its definition symbol, which looks like :=. To state that two quantities are equal use [Ctrl]= which inserts a Boolean equals sign. Use this Boolean equals in conditional tes ts and in equations you want to solve. If you need to do temperature conversions between Fahrenheit and Celsius, define these simple conversion functions: F_to_C(x) := (5/9)*(x - 32) and C_to_F(x) := 32 + (9/5)*x To integrate the data set y made by sampling at irregularly spaced time points x , use interpolation: Define f(t) := linterp(x,y,t) and then use the numerical i ntegration operator to integrate f from the smallest time value in x to the larg est. Use the MathSoft Control components to include buttons, sliders, text boxes, lis t boxes, and combo boxes in your worksheets. To import data from a datafile into your worksheet, insert the Input Table compo nent, right-mouse-click to bring up the context options, and choose Import. Your data is imported into a spreadsheet display and becomes part of the worksheet. If you select a group of regions, but want to deselect one of them, press [Shif t] and click on the region. If you want to print out these tips, you can find the file in your Mathcad folde r. It is mtips.txt. Be careful not to change anything in the file. MathSoft publishes a variety of discipline-specific Mathcad add-ons that extend the power of Mathcad in a variety of areas including EE, ME, CE, Physics, Mathem atics, and more. You can create a 3D QuickPlot by entering a 2-variable function in your workshee t, and then typing the name of that function as the argument in a 3D plot. You can select multiple regions and change properties common to all of the regio ns selected, rather than changing each region separately. If you want to restrict user access to a small number of regions in your workshe et, you can opt to protect your worksheet, rather than inserting areas and locki ng them.