22/2/22

From: Dr Christopher Mabb, Scientific Word Ltd.
To: Our Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook Technical Typesetting list

1. Windows 11:    Users have started asking:

   ...is a windows 11 machine ok for the software?

   to which our initial response was:

   ...we’ve not tried it ourselves; though neither have we heard of any issues with Windows 11 from anybody else. At worst, we expect you’d be able to run Scientific WorkPlace in Windows 10 compatibility mode on Windows 11.

   The user subsequently confirmed that he was running Scientific Word v5.5 without issue on Windows 11; and because v5.5 runs on Windows 11 we are fairly confident that version 6 also will run on Windows 11. Do please let us know your experiences either way.




2. v6 dialogs:    An academic with Scientific Word v6 Emailed to ask:

   ...for a little bit of help or advice concerning the Scientific Word software <snip>
   There are a few key-functions which would appear to not have been fully installed – such as “decoration” on the maths toolbar and “insert breaks” on the menu bar.

   Our first attempt to help was well wide of the mark; we wrote:

   Without further details as to what you mean by “appear to not have been fully installed” this is our best guess at the problem:

   • If you start Scientific Word with a left-click on the icon, then Insert – Math objects – Decoration can behave unpredictably: the dialog appears then disappears, though you can bring it back by clicking on the Scientific Word editing window. But when you select the decoration you want, the dialog disappears again and you need to bring it back as above, in order to click on OK.
   • Solution: start Scientific Word with right-click – Run as Administrator, and this problem goes away. It seems that having once started Scientific Word with right-click – Run as Administrator, future starts can be with left-click. This is the point made by Step 6 of the v6 installation instructions, which says:

     “After installing… Right-click the v6.0 program icon and Run-as-Administrator… After updating from a previous version, you may not need to re-Activate… but you should still open the program in the way described in this Step 6”

   ...failing which we requested some screenshots of the problem (as in our December 2017 mailing Item 3). Once we saw what it looked like to the user, it was fairly straight-forward to diagnose the problem:

   Thanks for your reply with screenshots. You can re-size the dialog boxes by clicking-and-holding at the bottom right corner (the cursor becomes a double-headed arrow) to show all the options; see the screenshots Decoration 1, Decoration 2 and Decoration 3. Once you’ve set it to the size you want, Scientific Word will remember it for next time.

   We're pleased to say this resolved the issue.




3. v6 document class:    A Scientific WorkPlace v6 user in Asia, taking advantage of our offer of 12 months' complimentary Technical Support (see our August 2021 mailing Item 1) asked us:

   ...could you please provide me with the steps for changing the documentclass/package/style of my manuscript, which was created using SWP6.0 <snip>?  The current documentclass is amsart

   In our reply we said:

   From within a Scientific WorkPlace v6 document, you can see:

   • The document class, from Typeset – Options and packages – Class options: eg. “LaTeX documentclass is article”
   • The packages called, from Typeset – Options and packages – Package options: eg. “Packages in use: amsfonts; amsmath”

   and:

   Scientific WorkPlace intends you to choose the correct class for your document in advance; we therefore do not guarantee that making subsequent changes to the document class will work. Such changes might corrupt your document; at the very least you should keep multiple backups to which you can revert if necessary.
   If you wish to try, you can change the document class of your manuscript by clicking on the Source tab at the bottom of the editing window (to the left of PDF preview). About line 9 or 10 you will see the line saying:
         <documentclass class="amsart"/>
   Carefully change that to read
         <documentclass class="article"/>
   You can then go back to the Normal tab, and check the change has registered from Typeset – Options and Packages – Class options: “LaTeX document class is article”.
   
   You can add in the class options “b5paper,10pt,twoside,onecolumn” by clicking on “Modify” and selecting the required options for

   1. Body text point size
   2. Paper size
   3. Print side
   4. Columns

   The choices which are the default for article class (eg. 10pt) may not register in the list of Options.

   For completeness, we note that using the Source tab to make changes to a v6 document in this way relates to our January 2022 mailing Item 1.




4. Excel2LaTeX:    A Scientific Word v5.5 user with a 5-hour Support Package asked a question about some tables he'd generated from Excel using the add-in Excel2LaTeX – which we've not previously documented in our mailings. As the instructions say:

   Just open the file Excel2LATEX.xla in Excel. Then you will have two additional menu items in your Tools menu and a new toolbar with two buttons on it. For Excel 2007 and later, you will have two new buttons in the Add-Ins ribbon. If you plan to use the program frequently, you can save it in your addin directory and add it with Tools→Add-Ins. This way it will be loaded whenever Excel is opened.

   To set Excel to use this add-in (using Office 365) go to File – Options – Add-Ins – Manage Excel Add-Ins Go, and Browse to where you saved Excel2LaTeX.xla – OK. You may still need to give it permission to run (Enable it) the first time you run it after opening Excel (see Step 2 below).
   
   To import an Excel table into Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5:
   
   1. Create your table in Excel and select it. Click on Add-Ins, select the Excel2LaTeX icon (Excel-table1)
   2. At the Excel security notice, click Enable (Excel-table2)
   3. Select the code from \begin{tabular) to \end{tabular), and copy it to the clipboard [Hint: you an uncheck 'Create table environment' to make the selection more obvious] (Excel-table3)
   4. In Scientific Word, bring in the Table – (4x3, floating) fragment from the Fragments pop-up (Alt-4) (Excel-table4)
   5. In Scientific Word, delete the dummy table between the [B] and caption TeX Fields, and Insert a TeX Field (Insert – Typeset Object – TeX Field) into which you paste the L^aT_eX code from Excel – OK (Excel-table5)
   6. When you save, close and re-open your document, the table will be shown in the usual way. You will probably want to make minor edits: deleting the empty bottom row, adding in lines (select the table, right-click – Properties – Lines – Single line – All – OK); completing the grey TeX Fields that are part of the floating table (Excel-table6).
   
   We expect this will open up new options for creating tables for several of our users.




5. REVTeX with v5.5:    At the tail end of last year, a user from Kazakhstan downloaded the 30-day demo of Scientific Word v5.5 for editing a REVTeX document with colleagues (though with the intention of using MiKTeX to produce the final output). We'll attach here the instructions we sent him for using REVTeX 4.2, as they provide an example of using any external typesetting specifications with Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5; this is documented in Scientific Word/WorkPlace at Help – Search – typesetting specifications – typesetting specifications – typesetting specifications from outside sources. We wrote:

   To be able to produce the PDF from Scientific Word, these are the non-trivial steps you will need to follow:

   1. Download REVTeX 4.2 from https://journals.aps.org/revtex (in the bottom half of the page) and extract the folder \revtex-tds.
   1. Copy the contents of \revtex-tds\tex\latex\revtex\ and add to the contents of C:\sw55\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\contrib\​revtex4\
   2. Copy the contents of \revtex-tds\bibtex\bst\revtex\ and add to the contents of C:\sw55\TCITeX\BibTeX\bst\revtex4\
   2. Create the folder C:\sw55\Styles\revtex4-2 and copy article.cst from C:\sw55\Styles\article\article.cst to C:\sw55\Styles\revtex4-2\article.cst
   3. [The document he was working with required several packages not available/included with the Scientific Word v5.5 distribution, which we therefore supplied.] From the zip file attached, copy the \tabulary folder to make C:\sw55\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\contrib\​tabulary
   4. From the zip file attached, copy the \booktabs folder to make C:\sw55\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\contrib\​booktabs
   5. Similarly \multirow, \mathtools and \was
   6. [We made some changes to his .tex file, which we returned to him to go in c:\sw55\docs.] Note: we have removed references to the packages txfonts and fdsymbol as Scientific Word’s TrueTeX compiler does not have the fonts required. Your co-authors will want to add these packages back (Typeset – Options and Packages – Package Options – GoNative) before compiling with MiKTeX
   7. Click on Typeset – PreviewPDF. Open the grey TrueTeX window and at the question mark ? press Return – S – Return (to tell the compiler to go into Silent mode). You will need to do this twice
   8. The PDF should open automatically in your PDF reader. If not, you can find the PDF in the same folder as the .tex file (probably c:\sw55\docs\ ).

   Working with external typesetting specifications is non-trivial – increasingly so as the more recently created templates call packages which were not supplied with Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5. For example, if the typesetting specifications require the enumitem package (not installed with Scientific Word v5.5) with the line:
   

   \RequirePackage{enumitem}

   this will cause an error at Typeset – PreviewPDF of the form:
   

   ! LaTeX Error: File `enumitem.sty' not found

   For each such uninstalled package you will need to obtain that package enumitem.sty and add it to your Scientific Word installation (for example, as C:\sw55\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\contrib\​enumitem\enumitem.sty).




6. v5.5 DVI Preview:    Interestingly, we've come across two or three people in the last 12 months still using DVI Preview (Typeset – Preview) in preference to Typeset – Preview PDF. We can understand the attraction: we ourselves were extremely happy, and very proficient, with the DVI Previewer (DeVice Independent), which we used from Scientific Word v1.0 (1992) to Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.0 (2003), the point at which the PDF Previewer was added. The DVI Preview was retained as well, not just in v5.0 but also in v5.5 (2005), giving compatibility with earlier versions.
   People don’t like changing what they’re doing, and there’s no harm in continuing to use the compiler you’re familiar with – as long as it does what you want.
   
   
   • Pros of DVI: Familiarity. If it does what you want, why change?
     
   • Pros of PDF: It's a later compiler, and so is less likely to have problems with your documents. And the eventual destination of most documents is PDF anyway.
   
   Feel free to use whichever compiler you prefer! But if you're a DVI enthusiast, do please let us know when requesting Technical Support, so that we're singing from the same hymn sheet.




7. \Sigma:    Not all maths puns are bad. Just sum of them.
   
   Competition: We will award complimentary access to the videos of our £4000+ Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5 Training Course to the first person to spot the two deliberate mistakes in the L^aT_eX of this item...