PTC Mathcad Prime is the leading standard for solving, analyzing, documenting, and sharing engineering calculations. And with Mathcad Prime 8, to be released in March 2022, you get even more flexibility and power. Look closer at what’s included and how it can help you:
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 Plank`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).
Learn more
This is just a first look at Mathcad Prime 8. For more detail, like demos and other insights, subscribe to the Mathcad Minute newsletter and register for the What’s New in Mathcad Prime 8 Webinar.
Webinar: What's New in Mathcad Prime 8
Join for insights, discussion, demos, and Q&A.
About the Author
Cat McClintock edits the Creo and Mathcad blogs for PTC. She has been a writer and editor for 15+ years, working for CAD, PDM, ERP, and CRM software companies. Prior to that, she edited science journals for an academic publisher and aligned optical assemblies for a medical device manufacturer. She holds degrees in Technical Journalism, Classics, and Electro-Optics. She loves talking to PTC customers and learning about the interesting work they're doing and the innovative ways they use the software.
