February 2012

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

1. Colour and movies in Beamer:    After our Christmas mailing, one of our long time users replied saying:

   "Many thanks for all the tips.
   My small technical question is whether it is possible to use colour fonts in Beamer and to insert short movies?"

   We responded:

   You'll find much useful information in some of our previous circular mailings, available to our users at https://www.sciword.co.uk/mailings/ – see especially May 2008 Item 1, and May 2011 Item 3. The attached document should compile to give a four-page PDF demonstrating both features: it will depend on your having the file C:/swp55/Graphics/TubeKnot.avi available, and your PDF Reader may require you to give permission for it to run the external movie file. Trust this meets your need.

   Do download and compile the sample document and explore some of these special features available with Beamer. Scientific Word users will need to edit the [Movie] TeX field to look for the movie in the C:/sw55/Graphics folder.



2. Scaling graphics:    If you're using the graphicx package and the \includegraphics command as discussed in Item 3 of our February 2011 mailing and Item 2 of November 2010 (whether in a header or not), you might find it useful to be able to scale the graphic as well. The document scaledgraphic.tex shows two versions of the same graphic - one at the default size and one scaled to 50% using the LaTeX code:

   \begin{figure}[tbp]
   \centering\scalebox{0.5}{\includegraphics{c:/swp55/Graphics/MSI_logo2.jpg}}
   \caption[50\% scaling]{The graphic scaled to 50\%}
   \label{graphic}
   \end{figure}

   Of course, you wouldn't expect to see that code: within Scientific WorkPlace right-click on the Figure TeX Field and select Properties. On the Contents tab, double click on the scalebox TeX Field to see where the scaling is introduced (and, of course, you can choose your own scaling factor).
   The demonstration graphic MSI_logo2.jpg is supplied with Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word in the \Graphics folder; Scientific Word users will need to change the folder for the graphic to c:/sw55/Graphics as in Item 1 above.



3. Disappearing screen font:    A friend who's been on our mailing list since 1993 found that, with a new Dell computer running Windows 7 professional:

   "<snip> ...in SWP, when I select "edit", "properties",
   >>> to give a mathematical character an accent (like an
   >>> overbar, or caret) the character disappears or is hardly visible on
   >>> the screen. This appears to be a viewing problem only; the character
   >>> with the overbar is present in a compiled document."

   He captured the problem with the screenshot in disappearingscreenfont.doc, although we didn't see the same thing ourselves when viewing the underlying .tex file. We suggested he change the font settings in Tools – User Setup – Font Mapping, to no avail. But by the next day he had solved the problem himself:

   "Under Performance Options of Windows, there is a Visual Effects
   section, and one of the settings is "Smooth edges of screen fonts".
   Unchecking this fixes the problem."

   We don't find that smoothing the edges of screen fonts make any difference ourselves - but we offer the information for other Dell users. Perhaps you would let us have your feedback on this?



4. System requirements:    Someone contacted us via our page at http://www.scientific-notebook.com/ asking:

   "Can i run your software in notebook"

   There is not a clear distinction between notebooks and netbooks, and it was easier simply to give the System Requirements for running Scientific Notebook - as specified near the bottom of the information table at http://www.scientific-notebook.com/:

   System requirements

   • Microsoft Windows® 98, Me, 2000, XP, and up, or NT 4.0
     or
     Apple Macintosh® running an emulator program such as Virtual PC™
   • 64 MB of RAM
   • 35 to 200 MB hard disk space, depending on the type of hard drive and the installation options selected
   • CD-ROM drive

   For Scientific Word and Scientific WorkPlace the hard disk requirement is 85 to 250Mb and 115 to 300Mb respectively.



5. Other languages:    Item 1 of our July 2010 mailing dealt with hyphenating text and renaming figures in other languages. In a similar vein, we were recently asked how to change the display of "theorem" and "proof" in order to write in French. We replied:

   Thanks for your message. Start with a document such as File – New – Standard LaTeX – Standard LaTeX Article. Click on Typeset – Preamble and change the lines:

   \newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem}
   \newenvironment{proof}[1][Proof]{\noindent\textbf{#1.} }{\ \rule{0.5em}{0.5em}}

   to

   \newtheorem{theorem}{Théorème}
   \newenvironment{proof}[1][Preuve]{\noindent\textbf{#1.} }{\ \rule{0.5em}{0.5em}}

       Hope this is helpful. Further technical support is available from the distributor who sold the software to you, on production of your serial number.
       If you wish to consider the possibility of buying our expert Consultancy time, please go to https://www.sciword.co.uk/consult.htm for further details.

   Feel free to download the example Frenchtheorem.tex, click on Typeset - PreviewPDF and check the Theorem and Proof lines. Now why not try changing Case and Corollary? What about Conjecture?



6. Version 6.0:    We promised last time that:

   we'll be supplying free upgrades to all those who have bought version 5.5 in the past three months...

   For the avoidance of doubt, the three months count back from our Christmas mailing. So all those buying version 5.5 from September 2011 onwards will receive version 6.0 free of charge. Version 6.0 pricing has not yet been finalised but - if you clicked the v6.0 links we gave you last time - you'll see from the additional features and extra platforms that it's unlikely to be less than v5.5! A purchase now could be a good investment ; - )
   One point however: it may be that the free v6.0 upgrade will be Licence-only, regardless of whether your v5.5 purchase was a Boxed system or Licence-only.



7. A quick computation:    We were asked this week whether 65359477124183 is a prime number. Of course, this is part of the functionality of Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Notebook using the MuPAD engine. But we were amazed just how quickly our software returned the result - in fractions of a second. Download the document here, and, with your cursor in the Display, click on Compute - Factor! Amazing...