February 2013

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

1. A0 posters (again):    We invited feedback last time (Item 2) about creating A0 posters. One of our friends, a long-time expert in LaTeX, Emailed us in response:

   "there are quite a few listed at http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=poster
   the examples possibly don't "flow well" with sciwo*, but comments are
   always welcome.
   personally i would go for flowfram with jpegfdraw, but i doubt the
   combination would please your clientele."

   We're including this for interest and information, though, as we noted in our thanks to Robin, the further we'd get away from our WYSIWYG interface the less true we’d be to our Unique Selling Point of enabling professional typeset output from straight-forward point-and-click input...



2. Licence server update:    MacKichan Software have brought the new licence server online since our last mailing, and our updated advice to all users, for ease and speed, is to revert to Web-based licensing: ie. Help – Register – By an automated web service – Next:
   
   
   • Licence files for standalone Fixed licences will be returned immediately and transparently
   • Licence files for home use by staff and students (where applicable) connected to campus-wide licences will be returned immediately to the local licence administrator; this means that there is no longer any benefit (and a delay of up to 24 hours) in using the Email licensing we recommended as a workaround in our October 2012 mailing (Item 1)
   • We understand there may still be a glitch in returning server licence files for Floating licences; do please let us know if you have any problem and need some help with this.
   
   We apologise for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.



3. Fixed or Floating?    From time to time we find that people are confused by the terminology of our licences. A common misunderstanding among prospective users wanting to install Scientific Word, Scientific WorkPlace or Scientific Notebook on their home machine, work machine and laptop is that they will have to buy the more expensive Floating licence.
   This is not true! The generous provisions of our Fixed and Floating licences are on our web site at www.sciword.co.uk/floating.htm : the standard personal Fixed licence permits installation on all the user's computers (assuming no-one else has access to those machines). The Floating licences are for network installation, usually in Universities/Colleges or research departments of companies. Please click the link above and read the details if you have any uncertainty; pricing for each is on our Licence Calculator at www.sciword.co.uk/pricing.htm .
   The next choice is whether to buy our software as a Boxed system (with printed manuals), or alternatively to buy it Licence-only (serial number, and distribution CD containing the manuals as PDF files). We recommend Licence-only for most users; the manuals are also available for download in PDF format at https://www.sciword.co.uk/manuals/ . In either case, if you buy v5.5 now we will include a free upgrade to v6.0 (Licence-only) when it's released.



4. Calligraphic L:    One of our users found what might be regarded as a b*g. When you use the Text tag pop-up on the Tag toolbar (View – Toolbars – Tag) to select Calligraphic, the program automatically and correctly goes into Maths mode for the calligraphic characters. This experienced user inadvertently managed to convert some of these characters into Text mode, and noticed that in the Typeset – PreviewPDF such characters were straight-up Roman letters rather than curly calligraphic letters as intended. Our solution was simply to highlight these characters and click on the black T / red M in order to convert them back to Maths mode. Please see the sample document in case it happens to you.



5. Run as Administrator:    A user installing Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 on a University machine the other week ran into a problem which was new to us. He Emailed us saying:

   "Anything i open with version 5.5 <snip> - is followed by "The text database failed to load file c:\swp55\temp\swt0000.aaa"
   Then it does not allow to open anything."

   With some diagnostic help from MacKichan Software it turned out that there were permission restrictions (presumably imposed by the University for security) preventing Scientific WorkPlace from writing to the c:\swp55\temp folder. The solution in this situation is simply to start Scientific WorkPlace each time by right-clicking on the desktop icon and selecting "Run as Administrator".
   You could have played around with this problem for days without stumbling across the solution – so we hope that mentioning it here will prevent others having a similar frustrating experience.



6. Importing other LaTeX files:    In a perfect world, everyone would write their .tex files using Scientific Word/WorkPlace  ; - )
   But until that happens, you will have to work, from time to time, with LaTeX files creating outside of Scientific Word/WorkPlace. That's OK: simply click on File – Import Non-SWP/SW LaTeX, navigate to the file in question and click on Open. This works for probably 90% of externally-created LaTeX documents; in practice, you only need remember to do this when the usual File – Open has not gone smoothly.
   You may also want to read the online Help – Search – non-SWP/SW – non-SWP/SW LaTeX documents – non-SWP/SW LaTeX files, for further information.



7. Holiday Closure:    It's the skiing season again... please check our Holiday Closure dates at www.sciword.co.uk/holiday.htm .



8. Where are your friends?    If they're in companies or Universities where they don't already use Scientific Word or Scientific WorkPlace, why not invite them to try our 30-day demo – completely free of charge? We know you don't want your friends getting added to any junk mail lists – but when you click the link below we only receive their details if they choose to take advantage of our free 30-day trial (available from the link they'll receive), so you won't be compromising their privacy in any way.
   Do please spread the (Scientific) Word!