October 2025 mailing – Scientific Word Ltd.

Installation: Here are various issues relating to the Installation of Scientific Word/WorkPlace:

Version 5.0: There are still several users running version 5.0 (from 2003). One such SWP user in Finland wrote:

I have an old SWP which is faulty and I need to reinstall the program.

We wrote back advising him to:

Install and Register your Scientific WorkPlace v5.0 permanent licence on your computer using the v5.0 Installation instructions and your serial number 403-E0500-<snip>. You can download the Scientific WorkPlace v5.0 program file swp-pro500.exe (62Mb) from our Programs page (second from bottom) in place of the CD; right-click – Run as Administrator to start the installation.
<snip>
...you do need to Register (Step 8) as Registration is machine-specific. Please also see our v5.5 Installation checklist for reference.

And to a SW v5.0 user in Italy we wrote:

If you want to make sure you have a correctly functioning Scientific Word v5.0, you could re-install from scratch by following the v5.0 installation instructions with your serial number 300-E0500-<snip>. If you don’t still have your CD you can download the program file sciword500.exe (57Mb) from our Programs page (the 4th file from the top).
Be sure to keep multiple backups of your documents, just in case anything gets over-written.

Version 5.5: We wrote to one user:

For Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 you must start from the file swp-pro550.exe (95Mb). This is the file you download from our Download page: please see the screenshot SWPv5-5download1.png attached, and note that the file address (shown in the second ring at the bottom of the screenshot) is https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/mackichan-com-ftp/pub/download/version55/swp-pro550.exe. This is where you get the file swp-pro550.exe. Save this to your Downloads folder with right-click – Save link as (see screenshot SWPv5-5download2.png). Then go to your Downloads folder in File Explorer, and right-click – Run as Administrator on the file swp-pro550.exe.
We hope this is helpful. It is essential that you follow the v5.5 installation instructions precisely starting again from the beginning.

NOTE: If you do not Register you will only have the non-functioning Viewer version.

Another shaggy dog story: (see our November 2023 mailing Item 7)
A user who bought Scientific WorkPlace from us last year wrote in August:

I installed it on my home computer last year and everything was going well <snip> My home computer severely crashed this week <snip> and I tried to install swp 5.5 on my laptop <snip>.
I followed the instructions and downloaded the swp-pro550.exe from your website. But when I try to run it, I get an error message. It says (I translate in English, the original message is in French):
Windows cannot access to C:\Users\[Name]\Desktop\swp-pro550.exe
Check the spelling of the name. Otherwise, there could be a problem with your network. To try to identify and solve the network problems, click on diagnosis.
error code: 0x80070043.
<snip> I also tried to run it directly from the download folder (and each time, the directory name is correct).
I followed the advice you give online and in particular, I chose the compatibility mode with windows 7. Or try to start with the safe mode. It does not change anything, I simply cannot start to run the .exe.

We responded with the usual information about precisely following the v5.5 installation instructions, re-Registering as Registration is machine-specific but not including any additional language dictionary serial numbers; and added:

Two further points to note in response to your Email:

We recommend you download to your Downloads folder, not to the Desktop

It is essential that you start the installation with right-click – Run as Administrator. If you do not have Administrator privileges on your laptop then you will not be able to complete the installation; in this case please ask your University (or whoever owns the laptop) to do the installation for you, or else give you Administrator privileges (at least temporarily).

If the information above does not provide a way forward, please send us a screenshot of the what happens when you right-click – Run as Administrator. Please also let us know:

What operating system you are using? Windows 11?

Whether you can run other .exe files in your Downloads folder?

The user responded:

Thank you for your prompt response. It allowed me to narrow down the problem.
I do have Administrator privileges on my laptop and I was running it as an Administrator (with compatibility mode windows 7), also from the download folder. I am using Windows 10.
But what you made me discover is that, indeed, I cannot run any .exe from my download folder! (also in safe mode)

at which point we thought we were beginning to make progress:

Thanks for your reply.

Windows 7 compatibility is probably what we would call ‘a red herring’ (an irrelevant complication – un faux-fuyant)

Also, don’t bother about Safe mode unless it is indicated by the TrueTeX installer stalling (from Step 2 of the v5.5 installation instructions, follow the link to our June 2016 mailing Item 6(1) – first bullet). Otherwise, stay in Normal mode.

The point to check next would be that you have permission to Execute in the Downloads folder: (in File Explorer) right-click on Downloads and select Properties. Then on the Security tab, check that Administrators have Full Control (see screenshot).
If that doesn’t resolve it then Yes, you will need to have recourse to your IT department.

We finally added:

If it were my computer, I would try turning off the (Norton) firewall/antivirus security briefly. You could check whether that’s the problem by turning it off for 2 minutes; if it is, you would only need to have it turned off for 10-15 minutes to complete the installation (and then do a complete scan to maintain security). But you may not be happy to try that, which I understand.

Alternatively, you can install and Register your Scientific WorkPlace on a different (third) machine to keep you working until the end of August.

At the time of writing, this is still unresolved.

Demo serial numbers: Following a re-build of the licence server, the 30-day trial of Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 now requires a specifically v5.5 demo serial number (418-E0600-); previously a v6 serial number (418-E0700-) would unlock 30-day trials of both v5.5 and v6. This restriction does not apply to permanent licence serial numbers, for which a v6 serial number (403-E0700-) still unlocks both v5.5 and v6. However, you must nevertheless install and Register v5.5 before installing and Activating v6: the licence server is not happy issuing a v5.5 licence on a machine for which it has already issued a v6 licence.
Our apologies to the people who were caught up in the middle of this change, to whom we wrote:

If the combined v5.5/v6 serial number did not get you up and running (so as to give you 10-12 lines saying “Available” at Help – System Features) then we recommend you try again with the dedicated v5.5 serial number as follows:

Please close Scientific WorkPlace v5.5

Delete the file c:\swp55\Licenses\license.lic

Open Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 and change the serial number to 418-E0600-xxxxx-yyyyy-zzzzz using Help – System Features – Change serial number

Register again, using Help – Register (Steps 4 – 8 of the v5.5 installation instructions)

Re-boot. Then right-click – Run as Administrator on the ‘Scientific WorkPlace 5.5’ icon on the desktop (or on Start – Scientific WorkPlace 5.5 (dropdown) – Scientific WorkPlace)

In Help – System Features, how many lines do you have saying “Available”? Perhaps you will kindly let us know.

Training Course videos: One of our users in South America was having problems downloading the videos of our Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5 Training Course from the links we'd sent him. He wrote:

I can download the course files to my PC but can't play them. There seems to be an extension issue.

We replied:

The files you have downloaded are .zip files for the 6 Sections of the Training Course; each .zip file contains the individual .mp4 files for the several modules included in each Section: see the list of topics covered by the Training Course.

The .zip files need to be unzipped to obtain the individual .mp4 files, using a utility such as Winzip or 7-zip. See the screenshot of looking inside the .zip file with 7-zip to see the .mp4 files.

but he still had problems, sending us evidence of an incomplete download. We said:

This error shows that you did not succeed in downloading one of the .zip files for which we gave you a link; this might simply be that you need to give your Antivirus/Firewall program permission to download the file.

We recommend that you first Reboot your computer. Then:

In our Email, on each of the links you should right-click – Open (screenshot 1)

Check the download icon at the top right of your web browser: I’m using Google Chrome here (screenshot 2). It should say that ‘1 download is in progress’

Click on the icon, and it should show you the name of the download happening (screenshot 3)

Wait until the download icon shows the download is complete (screenshot 4)

Look in your Downloads folder to see the name of the file, SW-Section1Hi-Res©CJMabb2014.zip (screenshot 5). (Alternatively, it will just say SW-Section1Hi-Res©CJMabb2014 if you do not have File Explorer – View – Filename extensions checked.)

If your computer will not download the files as outlined above, this might be caused by your computer (including your Antivirus/Firewall program), or by the speed/unpredictability of your Internet connection. In this case, you could go to your office at the <snip>, or to a computer shop for a more reliable Internet connection. In this case, you will have to copy the .zip files to USB stick (you will need at least an 8Gb USB stick, or preferably 16Gb).
Once you have downloaded the 6 .zip files, you can open them with Winzip or 7-zip as described before, to obtain the .mp4 files.

The instructions above enabled him to download all the .zip files and extract the MP4s.

The videos of our £4000+ Two-Day Training Course are available for just £197 + VAT per person (with Educational discount to £147 + VAT); you’ll find that working through all the .mp4 files to cover the Topics of the Training Course will be 4 hours well spent. Watch the promotional video here; for best clarity, start the video running and then select the Settings cog – Quality – 720HD, and Full screen mode.

SWP v5.5 questions: One of our new users Emailed with various questions before the end of his free 30-day trial:

SWP is working very smoothly, thanks a lot for your kind help and tips. I have some queries:

Days remaining:

How many days are left before my free trial ends?

We replied:

You can see how long you have left from Help – System Features [see here].

Re-installing:

My OS is giving me trouble. Our tech person is telling me to reinstall the OS, but that would also wipe out SWP. That fear has stopped me from reinstalling the OS. Now suppose I purchase the license. Will I be able to reinstall SWP in case of such exigencies?

We replied:

You can always reinstall Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 within your 30 days using the v5.5 30-day serial number 418-E0600-<snip>, or subsequently using the licence file we provide after purchase.

Word count:

Is there any way to figure out Word count in SWP? ( I know that spell checker is one of the way, but are there any alternatives?

We replied:

Spell checker is the only option for obtaining a word count in Scientific WorkPlace. Alternatively you could copy and paste the text into MS-Word and do the word count there.

Tables:

Finally, how do we satisfactorily create professional journal tables in SWP documents

We replied:

Tables are created from the fragment Table – (4x3, floating). You then replace with you own table the dummy table inside the TeX Fields giving the Caption, placement etc. For further information, search our Mailings page (Ctrl-F) for ‘tables’; particularly, see our November 2010 mailing Item 1.

Registration: Here's another issue relating to the Registration of Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.0/v5.5:

After almost a year, eventually, I made an attempt to get SWP 5.0 running on a Windows 10 machine (my Windows 7 laptop becomes more unstable).
After following your procedure and doing the registration via web, the system said, the licensing process went successfully and the license has been stored.
But when I call SWP 5.0, I receive the message displayed in screenshot
The message translate into English "System registration could not be updated. Do you have the rights to add it?".

to which we replied:

My impression is that the problem arises because you failed to use right-click – Run as Administrator where indicated in the v5.5 installation instructions (Step 2, 9, 12). Please try that.
If that still doesn’t work, please send us the licence file you have: c:\swp50\Licenses\license.lic.

and the user confirmed that worked:

Details matter. You are right; I missed that point.
Now it works. Thank you very much.

Adding packages: Another user in Germany wrote:

is there a possibility to install "new packages" in my SWP Version 5.5.
For example, I try to use package makecell, but it is actually not involved in my version.

We gave the following steps:

Google to find and download the package (also known as style file: it’s an .sty file): eg Google makecell.sty. If you get the text of the .sty file on a web page rather than as a file you can download, you can create your own .sty file by copying an existing .sty file, renaming it and pasting the text you’ve found into it by editing it using WordPad

Save the package (.sty file) where Scientific WorkPlace will look for it (any subfolder of c:\swp55\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\ ) and then add it into your document. See the second quoted paragraph of our July 2011 mailing Item 3 for these steps

If you can only find the .ins file (eg. makecell.ins) then see our May 2023 mailing Item 1. This is also worth reading for an overview.

Typesetting specifications: First, please re-read our November 2023 mailing Items 3 and 4.
This same user, with our Individual Annual Maintenance support, came back to us about his new computer:

I recently had the software [SWP v5.5] installed on a new university laptop but I am unable to view the PDF preview of the attached file without encountering a series of error messages.

In addition, he wrote that:

...when I select Typeset > Preview PDF, the second error message appears.

Most of his error messages related to not having installed on his new machine the NZJM typesetting specifications required by the document (.tex file) in question. We replied:

The second error “Characters in the filename or directory are invalid” usually occurs because users have included a space in the filename or folder; typically this is because they have saved the docment in a subfolder of My Documents rather than in c:\swp55\docs (or a subfolder of this).

The other errors are because you have not yet added the NZJM typesetting specifications to this computer’s installation of Scientific WorkPlace: the NZJM typesetting specifications are not included with the standard installation of Scientific WorkPlace v5.5.
We gave you comprehensive instructions for adding the NZJM typesetting specifications to Scientific WorkPlace [previously] and you confirmed you had it up and running (on your previous computer) <snip>.
There was a further question about the (less important) .cst file governing the screen appearance <snip>. We are forwarding this chain of Emails separately.

You can either:

Follow the instructions we sent you on your new computer: or

If you now understand which the relevant files are, you should be able to copy the NZJM files (that you modified or added in previously) from your old computer to your new computer.

He kindly confirmed:

Thank you for your prompt response. I am now able to compile sample.tex correctly.

Beamer: Beamer is a great feature for giving presentations – but comes with its own set of potential problems. We were doing some work on a presentation for one of our users with the 5-hour Support Package, and wrote:

You’ll notice that the blue bar at the bottom of the slides is over-crowded; unfortunately that’s a result of saving as Portable LaTeX. You can test this by starting with File – New – Other Documents – Slides Beamer, then Typeset – PreviewPDF; the blue bar at the bottom is fine [see here]. But File – Save – Save as Portable LaTeX, then Typeset – PreviewPDF and the blue bar at the bottom is over-crowded [see here].

You can either not bother about that; or, as we wrote subsequently:

If you are troubled by that over-crowded bottom bar, you could change the Beamer presentation theme by going into Typeset – Preamble and changing the \usetheme line. Options without the crowded bottom bar are:

\usetheme{default}    [see here]

\usetheme{Pittsburgh}    [see here]

\usetheme{Rochester}    [see here]

Remember you'll need to download the PDFs, open in the Acrobat Reader and choose Full Screen mode (View – Full Screen mode; or Ctrl-L) to give the presentation.
And if you're really keen for all the details of the Beamer themes by category, find the PDF beameruserguide.pdf in C:\sw[p]55\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\contrib\beamer\doc and read Sections 15.2 to 15.6:

15.2 Presentation Themes without Navigation Bars
15.3 Presentation Themes with a Tree-Like Navigation Bar
15.4 Presentation Themes with a Table of Contents Sidebar
15.5 Presentation Themes with a Mini Frame Navigation
15.6 Presentation Themes with Section and Subsection Tables

Happy presenting!