What’s New in Mathcad Prime: Key Enhancements from Versions 6 to 10

What’s in Mathcad Prime 6?

PTC Mathcad Prime 6 let you customize margins, headers, and footer sizes; add hyperlinks; run spellcheck for multiple languages; and more. Plus, the release introduced a new engine for symbolic calculations. Take a closer look:

More flexible documentation

Customize margin dimensions, including headers and footers that can be used in both imperial and metric paper types. Your PTC Mathcad worksheets now support the following:

• Custom Margins:

• Specify left and right margin sizes (imperial or metric depending on paper type)
• Bring forward legacy margin settings when you need to convert legacy documents

• Custom Headers and Footers:

• Specify header and footer sizes (imperial or metric depending on paper type)
• Bring forward legacy header/footer settings when you need to convert legacy documents

New productivity basics

Spellcheck is now available and supports multiple languages, depending on your installed system keyboards. You can now add hyperlinks in your worksheet too. Here are the details:

• Spellcheck:

• Toggle on/off for entire worksheet
• Ignore, or Add to Dictionary
• Set proofing language for different selections

• Hyperlinks:

• Add linked URL or text
• Point to a web page, mail client, file location, etc.

Easier to use

You now have access to an expanded list of print options. Plus, find/replace subscripts or individual parts of identifiers. Explore these new capabilities:

• Find/Replace:

• Subscripts, independent of identifier
• Identifiers that are not subscripts (if “Match Whole Word” is deselected)

• New API Command:

• Programmatically save worksheets in several different formats

• Printing:

• Specify selected content and page ranges for printing

Expanded chart options

You now have more chart application options, from exporting your plot as an image file to zooming in and out of your plot within the chart application. Updates include the following:

• Zoom in/out of your plot within the application itself to better view specific parts of your plot
• Save images in the chart in several different formats
• Find more chart templates with predefined settings in the ribbon
• Access chart application Help directly from the PTC Mathcad Chart Application window

New symbolic engine

When you open a worksheet in PTC Mathcad Prime 6.0, you might notice that you’re using a new symbolic engine. We’re introducing this engine so that we can better control how we support the calculation engine within the product. In short, it allows us to be more responsive to your feedback and requests to improve the product.

Note, you can always switch back to the legacy symbolic engine. That way you can compare the old and the new. Find a problem? Report it to PTC - we have an active program to improve the new symbolic engine and appreciate all feedback on it.

What’s in Mathcad Prime 7?

Mathcad Prime 7 improved on the popular software by adding symbolic engine enhancements, combo-box input control, usability improvements, and more! Here’s a closer look at what’s included and how it can support your work.

Combo-box input control

Calculations are driven by defining variables, and for some engineering problems, several different values may be needed for different variables to provide a complete picture of the engineering being documented.

With new combo-box input controls, you can predefine variables and their values associated with different calculation options. Simply change sets of variables related to specific use cases by selecting a new option in the combo-box drop down menu.

For example, if your worksheet calculations change depending on the material used, say with different metals having different characteristics, you can set up a combo-box to define all the variables and variable values associated with different types of metal. You can then select the metal type in the combo-box and the worksheet is recalculated using the characteristics of the selected metal.

You can define multiple variables for each combo-box selection; you can use multiple combo-boxes in your worksheet; and you can include them almost anywhere in an equation.

Image: Combo boxes embedded in a Mathcad Prime 7 worksheet.

Symbolics enhancements

Mathcad Prime 6 introduced a new symbolic engine to the software, offering PTC’s software engineers more flexibility as they work with the software. For you, that means you’ll see modifications and enhancements that simply weren’t possible in the past.

In Mathcad Prime 7, we’re already building on what we started last year. Seasoned users should start to notice the following:

• Better error notification. That is, issues with input expressions are reported more precisely.
• Significantly improved performance, including for the keyword simplify, the keyword solve, and definite/indefinite integrals.
• Improved feedback (targeted analysis of calculation) for many cases where evaluation once seemed to take too long.
• Enhancement of both the keyword simplify and the keyword simplify with the modifier max. Now you can expect faster and more simplified results.
• Enhancement of both the keyword solve and the keyword solve using the modifier fully. Now, more cases can be solved with the keyword, including:

• system of equalities and inequalities.
• cubic equations.
• equations with symbolic functions.

• Enhancement of the keyword float, improved accuracy for some calculations (e.g., Bessel functions), and improved rounding.
• Changes with assumption of variables. The assumption real is still the default with the new engine, but it now also supports the assumption complex as a modifier.
• Improved support of definite/indefinite integrals.
• Improved support for the keyword series, so that it now supports binominal series.
• Improved work with polynomials, powers, and roots. Plus, improved performance of large powers.

Image: Sample equations in which you can expect improved performance with the new symbolics engine.

Standalone converter

Mathcad Prime 7 includes a standalone legacy worksheet converter that you can install alongside the application. Now you no longer need a separate installation of the legacy Mathcad application, saving you time and effort.

(Note. This has the benefit of also addressing issues that users may have had in the past, such as when Mathcad 15 and Prime could not be installed on the same PC.)

More enhancements

Mathcad Prime gets easier to use with each release, with more options for controlling your everyday tasks. Many of the following usability enhancements were made in response to customer requests:

Save your worksheet in PDF format for easier file sharing.

Image: Saving worksheets as PDFs is now an option in Mathcad Prime 7.

Scroll, focus, and zoom more easily.

These functions have been enhanced to improve readability, review, and edit of Mathcad worksheets. For example, zoom now impacts the page you view and not the page on which the caret is located.

Image: The zoom slider provides greater control over the size of your displayed worksheet.

Turn major gridlines on or off from the Document menu.

Image: Enhance your view by easily hiding or displaying major gridlines.

API Help. Besides all the advances available in the new Mathcad Prime 7, the API documentation with examples has been added to online help.

What’s in Mathcad Prime 8?

With the release of Mathcad Prime 8 in March 2022, you got even more flexibility and power. Here’s a closer look at what’s included and how it can support your work.

Redefinition warnings

With the redefinition warnings functionality in Mathcad Prime 8, warnings automatically appear on redefinitions in regions that contain them. You can turn warnings on and off for all or individual categories of identifier, so you can more closely manage your identifier use.

Show frame (header, footer, page body)

Turn borders on for the header, footer, and page body calculation area of your worksheet. These borders appear in page view, printed documents, and worksheets saved in PDF format.

Partial derivative operator

Insert and use a partial derivative operator in your worksheet. From the Operators menu, use the new operator to write expressions in terms of partial derivatives.

Copy/paste multiple values to combo-box

Mathcad Prime 7 included a combo-box input control so you could control calculations in your worksheets with easy to create, easy-to-use drop-down menus of variable definitions.

Mathcad Prime 8 adds the ability to paste multiple variable values directly into the combo-box edit mode. Copy a selection of values from a matrix, select that same size of data in a combo box, and paste. Or you can paste into one value box and the data will paste from that location down and to the right. In both cases, the combo-box automatically resizes to accommodate the pasted data.

Symbolic engine enhancements

PTC Mathcad Prime 8 continues to enhance the functionality of the new symbolics engine, which was introduced in PTC Mathcad Prime 6. In PTC Mathcad Prime 8 you’ll find:

• Symbolics integral transform enhancements. Significant improvement and expansion in use and performance, including added supported use cases, have been added for the following symbolic integral transforms:

• fourier and invfourier
• laplace and invlaplace
• ztrans and invztrans

• New nfact and ofact modifiers for use with fourier keyword, which allows you to define normalization and oscillatory factors.
• Improved performance and added supported use cases for calculus operators, including limits, derivative, and integrals.
• Improved performance and added supported use cases for keywords, including solve, rewrite, series, simplify, assume.
• Improvement in undefined variable handling in symbolic results, including better auto-labeling of free undefined variables and variables in lambda expressions.

Numeric engine enhancements

In PTC Mathcad Prime 8, the following numeric engine updates and enhancements have been made.

• Updated physical constants. In alignment with NIST and CODATA, we've updated several physical constants, including the following:

• Planck’s constant
• Boltzmann constant
• Reduced Planck`s constant
• Atomic mass unit
• Avogadro`s number
• Molar gas constant
• Fine structure constant
• Elementary charge
• Stefan–Boltzmann constant
• Magnetic flux quantum
• Rydberg constant

• Clearer error messages related to behavior of functions statespace and odesolve when not properly configured.

Usability enhancements

The following usability enhancements have been made:

• Ctrl/Wheel zoom can now be used to zoom in and out of a worksheet.
• Zoom slider now defaults to 5% steps when you use the + and – controls.
• With the Close button on worksheet tabs, you can now close worksheets directly from the worksheet tab.
• Unsaved worksheet indicator: for worksheets that have yet to be saved, an asterisk will appear on the worksheet tab.
• Context menu on worksheet tabs: A new context menu is now available on all worksheet tabs providing access to useful actions, including:

• Calculate
• Close (this worksheet, all worksheets, other worksheets, worksheets to the left/right, unchanged worksheets)
• Move tab
• Copy full file path
• Open containing folder
• Print
• Save as

• Drag and move worksheet tab: When multiple worksheets are open, a selected worksheet tab can now be dragged and dropped to arrange the order of worksheet tabs to the user’s preference.
• Clear text format command: You can now clear text formatting (font, font size, color, etc.) for text selections back to the default text format.

Miscellaneous

Finally, you’ll find these updates available, so your work remains useful moving into the future.

Save legacy worksheets as HTML

PTC Mathcad Prime 8.0 worksheet converter allows you to save legacy Mathcad 15 worksheets in HTML format.

With the standalone converter introduced in PTC Mathcad Prime 7.0, you no longer need a legacy Mathcad install to convert legacy Mathcad 15 worksheets to Mathcad Prime format. With the Save As HTML functionality in PTC Mathcad Prime 8.0 XMCD MCD converter, you can now create a view of the legacy Mathcad 15 worksheet, so you no longer need a legacy Mathcad install to see the content that you are converting.

Use the Save as HTML functionality in the converter to create a view of your legacy Mathcad 15 worksheet before you convert it to Prime format and refer to it to validate your new Prime worksheet and help with rework where necessary.

Windows 11 support

PTC Mathcad Prime 8.0 is certified to run on the newest Windows operating system, Windows 11 (version 21H2).

What’s in Mathcad Prime 9?

Engineers need a place to perform calculations and solve complex problems with precision and transparency while capturing assumptions and decisions as part of their workflow. PTC Mathcad Prime is the leading solution for engineering calculations, enabling a wide range of engineering calculations while being intuitive and easy to use.

PTC Mathcad Prime 9, released to all customers on March 14, 2023, delivers numerous productivity and functionality enhancements so users can accurately solve, analyze, document, and share all of their engineering calculations faster than ever. Read on to learn more about what’s new.

Math-related updates

Mathcad Prime 9 delivers on the power of the new symbolic engine, and valuable enhancements have also been made to the numeric engine to give users access to more mathematical operations and functionality than ever before, including:

• The Gradient Operator, which returns the gradient of a scalar function with respect to defined variables both numerically and symbolically.
• The addition of the pdesolve function in the Solve Block
• Enablement of symbolic solutions for Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE). Users can now solve first-order ODEs and higher-order ODEs that can be reduced to first-order systems.
• Users can now symbolically solve a system of equations inside a Solve Block using the find Function.
• New Logarithmic Integral Functions and Elliptic Integral Functions
• Calculus Operators such as derivatives, limits, integrals, and summations used symbolically have been improved and cover expanded use cases.
• The functionality and use cases for several symbolic Keywords and Functions have been expanded upon. For example, users can use the assume Keyword to specify assumptions about a function’s result.

Usability/productivity enhancements

Mathcad Prime 9 also provides important capability and productivity enhancements rooted in customer input and feedback. These include:

• Text Styles
• Internal Links
• Custom Color Picker
• Go-to Page
• Current Page Tooltip
• Math region to Text region conversion

Text Styles allow users to organize worksheets better without having to manually format content in each individual text region. Simply use the appropriate Text Styles to make changes swiftly throughout a document and create a consistent look or better visually organize a worksheet’s different sections.

Other notable improvements in Mathcad Prime 9 are the Internal Links, Go-to Page, and Current Page Tooltip features. These make it easier to navigate through lengthy documents. Internal Links have the added benefit of letting users connect notes and calculations across the worksheet for effective referencing. Additionally, all color selection menus are enhanced to include a custom color picker, so users can highlight sections of a document or make certain equations or plots stand out in a desired color. This makes it easy to focus on the most important information in a worksheet.

Finally, Mathcad Prime 9 now allows users to press the spacebar when typing a new region to convert it from the default math region to a textbox, which allows them to bypass manually clicking on a text box to input text into a worksheet.

What’s in Mathcad Prime 10?

In a world where precision, transparency, and efficiency are paramount, engineers need a tool that goes beyond mere calculation. They need a platform that seamlessly integrates complex problem-solving with clear communication and documentation.

Mathcad Prime 10 empowers engineers to tackle their most challenging tasks with ease. With its intuitive interface and advanced features, Mathcad Prime 10 is a complete solution that enables engineers to perform accurate calculations while also preserving, sharing, and reusing their intellectual property (IP) in a single, organized platform. No more scattered spreadsheets or disjointed documents—Mathcad Prime 10 allows you to present your work in a clear, professional format, complete with math, text, plots, and images.

Mathcad Prime 10 released on April 23, 2024, and delivered numerous productivity and functionality enhancements to enrich how engineers interact with their calculations. Keep reading to learn more about this release’s key enhancements, including Advanced Controls with Scripting, the ability to choose a solving algorithm for functions and definite integrals, and enhanced multithreading for faster, more efficient mathematical calculations.

Application enhancements

Advanced Controls with Scripting: PTC Mathcad Prime 10 introduces advanced controls, offering users the ability to enhance their worksheets with controls including list boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes, buttons, sliders, and text boxes. These empower users to precisely define the behavior of each control within the worksheet. This feature provides a configurable and detailed approach to manipulating variable values, using scripting language like VBScript and JScript. The primary advantage of this new feature lies in automation, enabling users to streamline worksheet functionality and significantly increase productivity.

Choice of solving algorithms: With Mathcad Prime 10 you can now choose a solving algorithm for functions and definite integrals. These include the functions pdesolve, odesolve, numol, genfit, polyroots, find, minimize, maximize, minerr, and algorithms for calculating definite integrals. In the worksheet, each instance of these functions will include a right-mouse button menu of algorithm options so you can decide to keep the default algorithm or choose one of the other options provided. This gives you a higher degree of flexibility and control, enabling you to explore different algorithms if the default algorithm doesn't provide a satisfactory solution.

Subscript and superscript in text: You can now apply subscript and superscript formatting in your text regions, such as for documenting variable identifiers or parameters with exponents.

Symbolic engine enhancements

Expanded use of the keyword "fully": Mathcad Prime 10 has expanded the use of the keyword "fully" with additional use cases. Support for the modifiers "fact" and "max" for this keyword have also been added.

New "standard" keyword: A new keyword, "standard," which allows for Big-O notation with series expansion, as well as showing the constant of integration in indefinite integrals, has been added.

Improved support for "undefined": This release improves support for "undefined" results in the symbolic engine. This provides greater compatibility and equivalency with the numeric engine’s "NaN," allowing for symbolic support of the NaN class of functions.

General keyword improvements: Mathcad Prime 10 has general improvements for the keywords rewrite, solve, and simplify. Rewrite is expanded with five new modifiers: arg, atan2, fact, sign, and Φ, allowing rewriting expressions in their respective terms. Solve and simplify also have more supported use cases than ever before.

Numeric engine enhancements

Multithreading: Improvements to multithreading in Mathcad Prime 10 give users the full power of its functionality. Users can enjoy the capability to execute numerous independent calculations simultaneously. This feature enhances the efficiency of worksheet calculations, specifically those with multiple independent threads of computations, by using your multi-core processors. This results in faster processing times in situations where your worksheet is structured to have independent, non-sequential calculations.

Improved calculus operators: This includes improvements in pdesolve and general engine improvements. Building off the previous release of pdesolve, users can now set mixed boundary conditions, along with implicit and explicit boundary conditions. Units support has also been added. The numeric engine also has improved behavior of inline assignment evaluation in a matrix and handling unitless zero in a matrix.

Usability enhancements

Usability enhancements in Mathcad Prime 10 include:

• The ability to open a file from an Include Worksheet region
• The ability to open a file directly from the legacy worksheet converter
• The addition of world-date and system-date format in headers and footers
• The ability to link directly to a specific section of a second worksheet
• Being able to hide the collapsible area border, including when printing your worksheet