Mathcad Introduction

  • Run Mathcad (it should be on the menu of engineering programs somewhere)
  • Under the Help Menu, use the tutorials to learn about Mathcad.
  • Downoad the example file mathcadIntro-7jan06b.mcd to your machine.
    Do NOT run the example program from inside Intrnet Exploorer.
    Instead, download the file using mouse-right-click save-target-as, then run Mathcad and open the file from within Mathcad.
  • If you do not have access to Mathcad, you can view a pdf version of the example in mathcadIntro-7jan06b.pdf
  • Load the example file using the Mathcad File::Load function from the menu bar at the top of Mathcad
  • Use the View::Toolbars menu item to view the toolbars shown below
  • Read through the example and experiment with the plotting axes and functions
  • Use the Mathcad Help menu item to learn more
  • Be careful on the use of "equal signs"
  • Use the ":" key on your keyboard for the ":=" sign that defines a function
  • Use the "=" sign on your keyboard to evaluate something to get a numerical result
  • Use "shift+period" to symbolically evaluate something to get a non-numeric answer (i.e., to "do" an integral)
  • Mathcad is not perfect. It will give wrong answers. So, it is important for you to use engineering judgement when evaluating results. For example, if you take 2 times 2 on your calculator and get 1,000,000, you know not to "trust" the answer.