Computers in Physics Equation Editing with Ami Pro, Word, and Wordperfect David Bridges, Terry J. Deveau, and Margaret H. Gjertsen Citation: Computers in Physics 7, 444 (1993); doi: 10.1063/1.4823198 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4823198 View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/cip/7/4?ver=pdfcov Published by the AIP Publishing Articles you may be interested in Structural equation modeling applied to the prediction of word identification accuracy J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 115, 2606 (2004); 10.1121/1.4784673 Fluid Flow with Logger Pro Phys. Teach. 41, 345 (2003); 10.1119/1.1607805 Pro‐Ed Studies in Communicative Disorders edited by Harvey Halpern J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 83, 838 (1988); 10.1121/1.396091 Pro metric Phys. Today 29, 47 (1976); 10.1063/1.3024652 Pro nuclear power Phys. Today 24, 11 (1971); 10.1063/1.3022501
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PRODUCT REVIEW
EQUATION EDITING WITH AMI PRO, WORD, AND WORDPERFECT David Bridges and Terry J. Deveau
Department Editor: Margaret H. Gjertsen
[email protected]
System requirements: Lotus 1 Ami Pro 3.0: 286 or higher IBM-compatible PC running DOS 3.1 or higher and Microsoft Windows 3.x; Windows 3.x compatible EGA, VGA, super VGA, or Hercules graphics adapter; one floppy-disk drive, either 720 kbytes 3.5", 1.2 Mbytes 5.25", or 1.44 Mbytes 3.5"; 2-Mbytes RAM; depending on options, between 5 Mbytes and 12 Mbytes of space on a hard drive, plus at least 3 Mbytes for temporary files. A mouse is highly desirable for use with the equation editor, and mandatory for drawing. Suggested retail price: $495. Suggested retail price of a competitive upgrade2 from a competing product: $129. Street prices range from $238 (including a Windows 3.1 upgrade) and $94, respectively. Microsoft3 Word for Windows 2.0: 286 or higher IBMcompatible PC running DOS 3.1 or higher and Microsoft Windows 3.x; Windows compatible EGA graphics adapter or better; one 1.2 Mbytes or greater floppy disk drive; 2-Mbytes RAM (assuming all features, including the equation editor, are desired); depending on options, between 5.5 Mbytes and 14 Mbytes of space on a hard drive, plus 4 Mbytes on the drive where Windows is installed. A mouse is highly desirable for use with the equation editor, and required for drawing. Suggested retail price: $495. Suggested retail price of a competitive upgrade from a competing product: $129. Street prices range from $298 and $118, respectively. Academic institutions can purchase MS Word for $189 per workstation. Academic 10-packs, containing a license for 10 workstations, one set of disks and manuals, and coupons for additional manuals, cost $600. WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows4: IBM-compatible PC running Microsoft Windows 3.x; 4-Mbytes RAM. A 386 or better computer is recommended. List price: $495, upgrade price (from WPWin 5.1): $39.95. David 8ridges is a professor of physics at Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY 13214-1399; E-mail:
[email protected]. He wrote the description of the Windows 3. 1 environment, the comparison of Ami Pro and Word, the sidebar on DOE and OLE, and the sidebar on other reviews of Windows word processors. Terry J. Deveau is employed as an underwater acoustician with Seimac Ltd, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, canada 838 1W6; E-mail'
[email protected]. He wrote the WordPerfect for Windows review and the WordPerfect for DOS sidebar.
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his article reviews the preparation of scientific manuscripts using Lotus Ami Pro 3.0 (Ami Pro), Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 (Word), and WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows (WPWin) within the environment of Microsoft Windows 3.1. Because of the paramount importance of equations in quantitative scientific writing, the emphasis is on equation editors.
Windows 3.1 environment The Windows 3.1 environment offers many advantages to physicists and to professionals in other fields who are engaged in preparation of manuscripts containing equations, graphs, and drawings in addition to text. The following features are highlights of the Windows~ 3.1 environment. • The video display is in graphics mode, enabling both text and nontext graphics to coexist on the display screen. • What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) . • It is easy to move quickly between applications (task switching). 6 • It is easy to transfer textual and graphical information unchanged in form between applications. • All applications share scalable type fonts from the same large set of palettes. • All applications work with all printers. If these features are perfectly implemented in all applications, the user enjoys a seamless meld of distinct applications that behave as if they were a single homogeneous application, and the characters appearing in equations and in labels on graphs and drawings are exactly those used in text. The reality of Windows 3.1 is very close to this ideal. A physicist's ideal system, based on currently available software, might include a Windows spreadsheet or MathSoft's7 Mathcad 4.0 for Windows; a graphing program; a drawing program for diagrams and electronic circuits; a program for symbolic mathematics; an equation editor; and a word processor to integrate the output of the other programs with text. Many users would want to include a Windows-hosted program-development environment for Fortran, C, C+ +, or some other language, so that debugged code could be merged easily into manuscripts along with equations, drawings, and graphs.
Reuse of AIP Publishing content is subject to the terms at: https://publishing.aip.org/authors/rights-and-permissions. Download to IP: 23.19.34.131 On: Wed, 28 Sep 444 COMPUTERS IN PHYSICS, VOL 7, NO.4, JUL/AUG 1993 2016 12:44:17
Such integration is desirable for more than just aesthetic reasons. The superiority of word-processor technology over typewriter technology is apparent. Electronic composition of equations, graphs, and drawings possesses the same advantages, and so word processors need to be able to integrate diverse kinds of electronic information into a single document. The Windows 3.1 OLE interprocess communication technology (see the sidebar on OLE and DOE), one of Windows's most significant features, makes this possible. 8 Windows 3.0 was notorious for its instability. Windows 3.1, however, is an adequately stable environment. The system lock-ups and crashes of Windows 3.0 are essentially gone. To give some sense of what this means in practice, it can be said that system problems are a threat comparable to the threat posed by power outages, which tend to be rare.
Fonts in this package include Lucida Bright Math Extension, Lucida Bright Math Italic, and Lucida Bright Math Symbol, which are all rich sources of mathematical symbols. By way of example, a few of the symbols in the Lucida Bright Math Italic font are shown in Fig. 1. These three fonts together contain an estimated 651 characters, including four versions of the Roman alphabet at 26 characters each. Most of the characters, however, are mathematical symbols. You will have little trouble finding a font to supply a symbol for use in manuscript text. Using symbols in equations composed with an equation editor is, however, a different matter, and is discussed in detail below.
Common features of Ami Pro and Word equation editors The Ami Pro and Word equation editors are based on exactly the same paradigm. One can move from one to the other almost unaware of the change, except for differences in cursor shape and palette layout. Equation editing is WYSIWYG. Roman symbols are entered directly from the keyboard. Greek letters and mathematical symbols can be selected from palettes using a mouse, though keyboard key combinations can be used for most. The WYSIWYG environment provides instant gratification, and enables you to work without a previewI correct cycle. For those new to these equation editors,
Fonts The most common use of character fonts is to improve the appearance and legibility of a manuscript, but in quantitative scientific manuscripts fonts also serve as sources of symbols that are used in equations, labels for graphs, and drawings. Windows 3.1 is distributed with five TrueType scalable font faces: Arial (a version of Swiss or Helvetica), Times New Roman, Courier New, Symbol, and Wing
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