Other "Report Style" Software Alternatives? 1

[luket]

Hello All,

Are there any other "report style" software alternatives to MathCAD? I have to present technical reports of calculations, and I love how mathcad presents it in a readable format and the equations are "live". However, I'm not doing any substantial math work, only basic equations. In word, if I change one variable, I then must chase the changes all the way through the report, which can take a lot of time. MathCAD does this beautifully (along with many, many other higher end math features), but for me to buy it costs ~$1000. Are there other, less powerful math tools that would be less expensive but still have that on the fly updating when I change a variable?

Thanks for the help, Luke

 

[IRstuff]

Have you looked at "Mathlook for Excel" from UTS, the makers of TKSolver?

http://www.tksolver.com/ItemDetails.asp?SubCategoryID=5

TTFN

 

[israelkk]

You can buy on Mathcad 2001 Professional in a NEW box on E-bay for $89.95+$6 for shipping in the US using the "Buy It Now" option. In fact I am going to buy one for me today too.

 

[IRstuff]

Just bear in mind that Mathsoft no longer provides tech support for the older products and there are some bugs that are fixed by the 2001i and V11 versions.

TTFN

 

[israelkk]

I am using Mathcad 2000 pro and I have no problems In Windows 2000 but it has problems in Windows XP. So, I bought the 2001 for the XP and for the new VisSim that comes with it.

I will probably buy the Mathcad 11 pro when it will be ~$100 for the commercial version (probably when the next version will come).

I also do not like the limited installation policy of the Mathcad 11 so I hope Mathsoft will change it.

 

[IRstuff]

It's very likely that Mathsoft will change the licensing scheme due to too many complaints and probably very little return

TTFN

 

[luket]

I called the company listing the 2001 version and asked some questions. They told me it was originally a educational license, but after a new version comes out, then the educational can be used as professional. I was a bit leary, so I called mathsoft. They confirmed this is true and that the educational and professional versions are identical. I was worried the ed version would print "for educational purposes...." when you printed reports, but they said they do not. Thanks for the tip, ~$100 is now in my ballpark. Luke

 

[corus]

As you can insert a Word document into MathCad then the best method for your technical report is to insert around your calculations. In that way you'll get a Word and MathCad document combined in which you can modify variables whilst keeping the text.

corus