How to write reports and books in Mathematica
in [Mathematica]
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From: Dominic on 10 May 2010 06:38 Hi Per, Based on what you wrote I gather you're not familiar with StyleSheets in Mathematica. That's what you need to learn how to use. You either use an existing Stylesheet or create your own. The StyleSheet then has various cell templates that you choose to enter various formatted data into your notebook. For example if you wanted to enter a block of descriptive text, you would choose the "text" style, and then as you enter text into that cell style, it's formatted as simple text although embedded math can be entered as well. There is a whole process for managing, editing, creating, and using stylesheets in Mathematica. For example, if I just wanted to startout using the Book stylesheet, I would choose File/New/Styled Notebook/Book. That loads a default stylesheet in a default "book" style. But you would need to understand how to use those styles and edit the styles and I'm not aware of a good reference for that. Dominic
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Per_R=F8nne?= on 11 May 2010 06:24 Dominic <miliotodc(a)rtconline.com> wrote: > Based on what you wrote I gather you're not familiar with StyleSheets i= n > Mathematica. That's what you need to learn how to use. You either use > an existing Stylesheet or create your own. The StyleSheet then has > various cell templates that you choose to enter various formatted data > into your notebook. For example if you wanted to enter a block of > descriptive text, you would choose the "text" style, and then as you > enter text into that cell style, it's formatted as simple text although > embedded math can be entered as well. There is a whole process for > managing, editing, creating, and using stylesheets in Mathematica. For > example, if I just wanted to startout using the Book stylesheet, I woul= d > choose File/New/Styled Notebook/Book. That loads a default stylesheet > in a default "book" style. But you would need to understand how to use > those styles and edit the styles and I'm not aware of a good reference > for that. I have come a long way since I wrote my original post, partly through private mails partly through guessing and reading in Stephen Wolfram's "The Mathematica Book 5th Edition". I have now solved my original problems but of course there's lots of stuff I haven't been through yet. I'm still waiting for answers from Wolfram as to whether I can update my Mathematica 5 TE which has been "discontinued and no longer supported". Otherwise, I'll just use my old TE on my old G4/867 Macintosh running MacOS X 10.4 'Tiger' [I can then also run Classic apps]. I won't give up my Snow Leopard on my newer computers and I can wait the 15 months it will take for me to be able to purchase a Student's Edition. =A390 the price will then be, rather than =A3195 for a "Home Edition". -- Per Erik R=F8nne http://www.RQNNE.dk Errare humanum est, sed in errore perseverare turpe
From: David Bailey on 11 May 2010 06:25 Per R=F8nne wrote: > I am the not quote happy owner of Mathematica Teacher's Edition [it > doesn't work on Snow Leopard] and I do now see a future need to write > reports / books using Mathematica - though of course I would then have > to purchase a new version like Mathematica Home Edition at =A3195. > > I do know that all of the Mathematica documentation is written in > Mathematica itself. But nowhere in this documentation do I see how to > enter ordinary text or chapter titles in a Mathematica notebook. > > I have an MSc degree and teach in the Danish 3-year Sixth Form College > for the 16-19-year-olds. After the summer vacation next year I am to > take an extra BSc degree in Physics and Astronomy and this is where I > will need the ability to write reports in Mathematica, including text, > formulas and graphics. > > So I am even considering to wait with the purchase of a new Mathematica > - after all the I've got version 5 from 2003, the present version is 7 > and version 8 might have come then. > > And - I don't even see anything particularly about the issue in Stephen > Wolfram's "The Mathematica Book 5th Edition". With 1,500 pages. Only a > few hints. > -- > Per Erik R=F8nne > http://www.RQNNE.dk > Errare humanum est, sed in errore perseverare turpe > The simple answer is that any block of text can be formatted in a number of styles (such as Text and Input styles), and to change the style of any cell, click on the right cell bracket, and select a new style from the Format/Style menu. More generally, if you are having difficulty using Mathematica at this level, you would benefit enormously from a one or two day introductory course. David Bailey http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk
From: Canopus56 on 11 May 2010 06:26 Corrected links to Roger Williams YouTube demos entitled "Active Documents Section One.wmv" and "Active Documents Section Two.wmv" a.k.a. "Mathematica Notebooks as Pedagological Documents" follow - Active Documents Section One http://www.youtube.com/watch?v==-b0B5hp0hAQ Active Documents Section Two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v==Pm6yrevYcjQ - Kurt ----- Original Message ---- From: Alexei Boulbitch <alexei.boulbitch(a)iee.lu> Sent: Mon, May 10, 2010 4:37:50 AM Subject: Re: How to write reports and books in Mathematica <snip> quoting David Park - David Park wrote: <snip> Roger Williams has done two YouTube videos on Mathematica as the latest medium for technical communication. He traces over three millennia of technical communication and illustrates all the advantages of the active, dynamic medium that Mathematica is. (He had posted a version of this on MathGroup earlier, but this is a new and much improved version.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v====-b0B5hp0hAQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v====Pm6yrevYcjQ David Park djmpark at comcast.net http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/ <http://home.comcast.net/%7Edjmpark/>
From: Helen Read on 11 May 2010 06:27
On 5/10/2010 6:38 AM, Alexei Boulbitch wrote: > > I believe that I faced a more serious problem that prevents a broad using of Mathematica for creation > and keeping documentation. Namely, already several times (to be more precise, about 5 to 6) > the notebooks I have created appeared corrupted and impossible to repair. [...] > However, I think that this lack of stability is the most serious problem of the program preventing its future > propagation and should be seriously addressed. > > Indeed, what will a person do, if he loses an important document due to such instability of Mathematica? > Assume that this person is not a Mathematica fun (as both of us are), but only wants to use it as a comfortable > and powerful tool. And what, if it happens just an hour before he is going to present the document to his boss, > or to shareholders of the enterprise he works in, or to his bank? > What will I do, if the day of the lecture (that I believe is ready) I find that I cannot open the corresponding file? > I think the answer is unique: such a person will never use Mathematica any more (at least for creation > of documentation or of presentations). What version of Mathematica are you using? What operating system? I use Mathematica every day, and so do my (about 75 - 100 per semester) students. Many, many years ago we had problems with easily corrupted notebooks, but those problems have long since been fixed. My calculus students each submit at least one Mathematica file per week electronically, and I can't remember the last time I opened up a student's file that was corrupt to the point of unreadability. This entire semester, I think I received *one* file from a student in which some of the Sections/Subsections/Text cells that were in the file when I posted it had gotten corrupted, but the student's work was intact. > There is a second problem about Mathematica, which I classify as less serious, but still very unpleasant. > Rather often it informs that the system made a heavy error and will close without saving. We know that other > programs like for instance, Word also exhibit sometimes this nice trick. However, my personal feeling is that > Mathematica makes it considerably more often. Of coarse one can overcome this problem by a personal discipline > by often saving notebook one works on. Therefore, I classify this problem as a secondary one though still important. In recent versions of Mathematica, I have on very rare occasions seen Mathematica crash and close without saving. Usually it's because the student did something dumb that caused the system to run out of memory, but even that doesn't usually cause a fatal crash. I have also seen some weird crashes that were somehow related to 3D graphics, but it only happened to a very small number of students. It would happen consistently to the same few students, that Mathematica would go poof when they tried to save a file with 3D graphics in it. It would only affect about two students, and I was never able to reproduce it myself (we got around it by having the affected students delete the output before saving). I haven't seen a single case of it this semester, however. My point is that with the vast number (easily in the thousands) of Mathematica notebooks I deal with over the course of an academic year, these sorts of problems are extremely rare. I find Mathematica 7.0.1 to be extremely stable. I wonder if there is something unusual about your set-up, or with your specific use of Mathematica, that is causing problems. -- Helen Read University of Vermont |