September 2014

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

1. Training videos:   From time to time we’ve drawn attention to our flagship Scientific Word/WorkPlace Two-Day Training Course, which we’ve been developing and evolving continually since 1993! For a long time we’ve also made it available to our Annual Maintenance sites at a preferential 75% discount, for small groups of up to four people.
   Now, for the first time, we’re releasing our £4000 professional Training Course on video – available on a per person basis for just £147 to Education (single permanent licence for that named individual) – with a further £50 discount when bought together with new Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5/6.0 systems: £97 instead of £147, licensed for your personal use only (all plus VAT).
   In 6 Sessions, you get more than 50 lectures/topics and over four hours of 720HD video content, with several exercises to download and complete between sessions. If you’ve ever felt you were not making the most of your Scientific Word/WorkPlace software, this is the training for you! (And only available from us. Obviously.) Just go to https://www.sciword.co.uk/training.htm to watch the Promo sampler – be sure to watch in full screen HD for the fine detail – and then click the link beneath the video to buy.
   Annual Maintenance sites? You’ll get 12 months’ unlimited use of our Scientific Word/WorkPlace Training videos for half your Annual Maintenance payment – or ask us for an individual quote.



2. Version 6.0:    In the light of Item 1 above, one of our regular Training sites Emailed to ask:

   "When version 6.0 launches, will the training videos and on-site (in-person) training be covering the latest version straightaway?"

   We replied:

   "No, is probably the answer. When version 6.0 finally gets released, we’ll have a huge amount to do, supplying the program first to our Annual Maintenance sites, next to all those who bought new systems after the point we started including the free v6.0 upgrade and then new sales/paid upgrades. Only then will we be able to revise our Training materials... and we’ll want to give the Course live several times to perfect it before committing it to video. So – ball park estimate – version 6.0 live Training will not be until 4 to 6 months after the release of v6.0, and the video version probably not for a further 6 months.
       Of course, you’ll be able to go on having v5.5 Training throughout! Hope you do – I’d love to come visit again..."

   Please be assured that releasing our Training on video is in addition to, not a replacement for, live Training. As we wrote in last time’s mailing (Item 4):

   "I lead all the Training Courses personally, having evolved them over the last 20+ years. It also has the advantage that I’m on site for 2 days, allowing me to catch any other installation or technical problems your users might be having. If you think we’re good on Technical Support, just wait till you have me there in person!"

   Live Training, with all the travelling and interacting with users, is one of the parts of running the company I enjoy most – so it won’t be getting sidelined!



3. Windows 8:    An academic user raised a Tech. Support issue we struggled to resolve. After moving Scientific WorkPlace from a Windows XP machine to Windows 8, he Emailed saying:

   "I was able to install all licenses (including the dictionary).  However, I am stuck trying to install the dictionary.  After following your instructions it responds "the requested operation requires elevation". To circumvent this I tried installing whilst logged in as Administrator -but this also hangs. I suspect this is a windows 8 issue. Can you help?"

   We suggested:

   "Here’s a couple of things to try:

   1. Have you got User Account Control on (Start – Control Panel – User Accounts)? You’ll need to turn that off, and (probably) reboot before it allows you to install the dictionary (having logged on as the Administrator).
   2. Instead of Step 9 of our installation instructions, right-click InstallD.exe from Windows Explorer and select “Run as Administrator”.

   Please let us know which of these points resolves the problem"

   but in vain. The solution (thanks to our friends at MacKichan Software) was to start Windows 8 in Safe Mode, and then open Scientific WorkPlace and install the dictionary.



4. Mysterious problem:   On a possibly related note, one of our users in Spain reported a Windows 8.1 error message when trying to read a .tex file with Scientific WorkPlace:

   "Se produjo un problema al enviar el comando al programa"

   (there was a problem sending the command to the program). We never did get to the bottom of it, but he reported later the same day that:

   "I’m not aware of any changes since yesterday (but using Windows 8.1 with automatic updating), and I rebooted several times my PC before writing to you this morning, and once again minutes ago. Then, I realized that SWP again seems to work fine!
   A Windows mystery?"

   If anyone else has experienced a similar problem, do please let us know so we can track it down.



5. Wrapping:    A Scientific Word/WorkPlace document is a LaTeX *.tex file, probably on your hard disk in c:\sw55\docs or c:\swp55\docs . But to compile correctly the .tex file may well require other files it refers to, typically packages/style files (*.sty) and graphics; if you send your .tex file to a co-author or journal without these 'extras', they will not be able to produce the PDF correctly. For that reason, our programs include a utility called the Document Manager (on the Tools menu) which meets that need: it examines your .tex file to see what 'extras' it requires, and bundles (wraps) them all together into a .rap file of the same name and puts it in the same folder. The instructions we gave one of our users last week said:

   "...use the utility we provide for this purpose, available in Scientific Word – Tools – Document Manager. Click on Browse, and navigate to your .tex file NAME.tex. This will then give you the option to Wrap the file, which you should do; the default options will be correct. This utility wraps up your document (the .tex file with any graphics and ancillary files), creating a .rap file in the same folder and with the same name (ie. NAME.rap). This is the file you should send to the Institute."

   At the receiving end, those with Scientific Word/WorkPlace will use Tools – Document Manager to unwrap the file into its constituent parts (being aware of the default option not to overwrite their existing .sty files with possibly corrupted versions sent by a co-author), while those hardy souls who use LaTeX without an interface like ours will separate the .rap file manually.



6. Converting \input files:    A user supporting students at a UK university asked us for help with some .tex files which wouldn’t open in Scientific Word; it turned out that all but one were files to be read into the master document using the LaTeX command:

   \input{filename.tex}

   This notwithstanding, we enabled the user to open each of the individual files, Emailing him this sequence to follow:

   1. I created a Blank Template in Scientific WorkPlace (attached, so you don’t need to create it) and saved it as my NAME.tex blank template
   2. I opened your .tex file in WordPad (Start – Programs – Accessories – WordPad) and copied all the contents to the clipboard
   3. I opened the NAME.tex blank template in WordPad, and copied the contents from the clipboard to replace the dummy word “Blank”. I then saved the document (with the same filename NAME.tex)
   4. I then opened the document NAME.tex in Scientific WorkPlace to check it worked.

   Subsequently, we wrote:

   You now know that it was a master document report.tex with several \input or \include commands referring to other .tex files. If, as you say below, all you want to do is compile the [master] document (ie. without opening the document in the Scientific WorkPlace editing window), then you do not require to do any converting to a SWP-readable format and can in principle simply follow the instructions available in our November 2009 mailing (https://www.sciword.co.uk/mailings/November2009.htm) Item 1; you will need to run the compiler up to 3 times to resolve the cross references correctly.




7. Our USP...    (just in case you've forgotten what makes us special!) As consultants since 1990, supplying only the Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook range of products, all systems (except Student systems) come with our Unbeatable Expert Technical Support included free of charge for those who buy directly from ourselves or through our approved resellers. You certainly won’t get the same deal anywhere else (hey – we’ll even price-match if you think you can buy Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook £5 cheaper) because our technical expertise is not available elsewhere – we’ve been demonstrating, selling and doing Tech. Support exclusively for this family of software since Scientific Word Ltd. was established in 1990.
   
   

This software is way too good to keep to yourself! Why not tell your friends...