January 2022 mailing – Scientific Word Ltd.

v6 markers: A user for whom we had previously provided some Technical Support Emailed back to say that:

...although the original problem seems to have gone away, I still cannot introduce markers anywhere in either document <snip>. I would be grateful if you could somehow insert markers “buffalo” and “elephant” into the two figures...

It turns out that a, ahem, undocumented feature in Scientific Word/WorkPlace prevents markers being added to v6 documents unless the document was created from File – New – Standard LaTeX. In practice that's because the OK button doesn't work once you've entered your marker's name at Insert – Marker.
All was not lost, however. We replied:

We have added in the buffalo and elephant markers as requested <snip>.
Since your document does not accept markers being added from the Normal tab, we switched to the Source tab and, on new lines, added the markers in the form:
<a name="buffalo" key="buffalo" id="buffalo"/>
and
<a name="elephant" key="elephant" id="elephant"/>

If, on the Normal tab, you leave the cursor where you want the marker to go, when you switch to the Source tab you'll see that the line in question is highlighted in blue: simply paste in one of the lines above, and change buffalo to the name of your marker (3 times). When you switch back to the Normal tab you'll see your marker where you wanted to put it. You can click to open the marker field, and you can cross-refer to it as normal; however, you won't be able to edit the marker's name without going back to the Source tab.

We apologise for the inconvenience; this b*g affects Windows and Mac systems equally.

v6 keyboard shortcuts: After the piece in our November 2021 mailing (Item 3) we had a welcome Email from our long-time friend George Pearson, formerly of MacKichan Software. George told us that:

"Before the last release I added a bunch to the online documentation. Use Help, Scientific Word help, and then in the help window in the Introducing Scientific Word section expand the entry for Shortcut Reference. I had done my best to add all the shortcuts..."

though he modestly added "but did probably still miss something".
The help page he's referring to looks like this.

v5.5 keyboard shortcuts: Sticking with keyboard shortcuts, we were asked this question about v5.5:

The document https://www.sciword.co.uk/manuals/GetStarted-55.pdf page 77 Working with Files has shortcuts for

•      Open a file CTRL+O
•      Close a file CTRL+F4
•      Print CTRL+P
•      Exit ALT+F4
•      Open Help contents F1

But it does not have a shortcut for “Save File” that is usually Ctrl+S in other programs. (Ctrl+S does not work in SW5.5). <snip>

•      Is there any keyboard shortcut for “Save File”?
•      In general, is it possible to create a keyboard shortcut on my end?

In our reply we said:

There is not a specific “File – Save” shortcut such as Ctrl-S. However, you can access any of the menu items from the keyboard by holding down the Alt key; the menu items then have one letter underlined showing which letter to press to open that menu (so the File menu is Alt-F). Once the menu is open, the different options on the menu have one letter underlined similarly (so Save is Alt-F, S).
More generally, you can record your own sections of text (though not menu operations) as Fragments. See the online Help – Search – fragments – fragments – adding and deleting fragments.

Those who have not been using Scientific Word v5.5 ever since its release in 2005 might want to read our 12321 mailing Item 4 about the best ways to learn Scientific Word/WorkPlace v5.5.

Windows emulators: One of our earliest users (from over 30 years ago) got in touch a while back:

I run 5.5. in a virtual Windows 7 Professional machine delivered by VMWare Fusion on my iMac (OS 10.14.6). All is good.
Can I run 5,5 on a more up to date version of Windows? Windows 7 is no longer supported.

In our response we assured him that we were:

...running Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 happily on three separate Windows 10 machines. The v5.5 installation instructions flag up a possible problem at Step 2, but it practice it doesn’t arise in the current Windows 10 release.
To be honest, I’ve not tried running on a Mac inside an emulator – you’ll have to try that and see. But if the emulation is true it should work OK (one of the Windows 10 machines is actually Bootcamp running on a Mac).

Just click this link for further information about Bootcamp.

v5.5 graphics formats: Here's a message we received recently from Down Under:

...the one thing that has bothered me with SW5.5 (which I love) is the problems I have with graphics. I generate graphics in Mathematica and I have found a few things that are tricky:
1/ i end up using GIF format as I can get that into SW OK, but the journal publishers dont like that format much
2/ I have to be very careful not to re-run the Mathematica package with different inputs because I then fid that the ext time i load the SW file I have a new graph in the paper. Also, the graphics don't stay with the paper if I send the SW file elsewhere. <snip>
Perhaps I need to be using Latex instructions in SW to be cleverer about graphics?

We pointed out that Section 4.1 of the Training Course videos was particularly helpful in handling graphics, and answered that:

You’re by no means restricted to using GIFs. To see the graphics formats that Scientific Word can import, click on File – Import Picture – Files of type (dropdown); see screenshot here.

To prevent Mathematica over-writing your graphic, why not save it with a different name and import the renamed copy into your Scientific Word document?

To keep all the ‘extras’ (graphics, style files etc.) with your document, see our September 2014 mailing Item 5 about wrapping. This is covered in Section 5.1 of the Training Course.

The Scientific Word way of including graphics (by File – Import Picture) and the LaTeX way (by Insert – Typeset Object – TeX Field) are described in our February 2011 mailing Item 3. We recommend you stick with the Scientific Word way. <snip>

You can read lots more about handling graphics in Scientific Word v5.5 by going to our mailings page and searching (Ctrl-F on most browsers) for ‘graphics’.

SW/P v5.5 fonts... can get garbled by other programs. An academic site in London which had installed version 5.5 on a replacement machine wrote:

We are having problems with some fonts that were working perfectly well on the old laptop. Output files attached for you to see…
We are missing some fonts but not sure how we install these? Can you please help. Thank you

This is a variation of the issue last covered in our April 2019 mailing Item 4. We replied:

...let’s get this sorted out for you! We see an error message when opening the PDF; do you get this message? And so we also get some missing fonts throughout the document.
Do you know whether this document worked initially on this new laptop and has only stopped working following the installation of other software onto the laptop? In this case it can probably be resolved by following the instructions to Repair your installation, either from the CD or from the 73Mb sciword program download

An hour or so later they confirmed that the Repair had worked. It's always better to ask us the question than simply accepting the software not working correctly!

Support Options: Serious academic users of Scientific Word/WorkPlace obviously want to know that expert Technical Support is available if they need help. To one such user we wrote:

We have committed to supporting Scientific Word/WorkPlace until at least 2026 (see our June 2021 mailing Item 2), based on our expertise developed with this software since 1990. We’re offering two main support options:

Individual Annual Maintenance: see our May 2021 mailing Item 6 for Technical Support, subject to our Fair Use Policy. For the first 12 months there is no charge once you let us have your serial number and contact details <snip> After the first 12 months the cost is 20% of the Scientific WorkPlace cost, so about £114.

If you really want to develop your expertise in Scientific Word/WorkPlace, our Two-Day live Training Course (both v5.5 and v6.x), continuously developed from the early 1990s, costs over £4000. But for version 5.5 we also have the course recorded and available to download as MP4 videos for just £197 – which is further reduced with Educational discount to just £147. We can guarantee this would significantly increase your competence!

Also, the bi-monthly mailings are free of charge to anyone on our mailing list (which we’ll add you to, on receipt of your serial number).

Since that Email we have completely re-worked our Technical Support page to gather all the Support options together in one place – including the ‘New for 2022’ 5-hour Support Package. For users not wanting to find themselves up the typesetting creek without a support paddle, this page will reward careful consideration.

Log4j vulnerability: You will perhaps have heard about the Apache Log4j security issue already. If not, it's documented at the National Cyber Security Centre alert page, with much further reading available from any good search engine.

You will be pleased to know that:

Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook do not use any code from the Apache project in any version of the programs
There is therefore no Log4j vulnerability for either Fixed or Floating licences of Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook
No mitigation steps are required in respect of our software.

Our grateful thanks to Barry MacKichan for confirming this information.