Preferences Dialog Box

The Preferences dialog allows you to control different aspects of Mathcad's appearance and interface.

General Tab

Show Mathcad tips at startup

Displays Mathcad Tips when you start the application.

Standard Windows shortcut keys

Sets the keystrokes to those used in standard Windows applications. When unchecked, the keystrokes are set to those used in early versions of Mathcad. Many menu commands display the keyboard shortcuts.

Context-sensitive equals sign

Allows the = key to insert the evaluation equal sign when it is to the right of a defined variable and the definition symbol (:=) when it is to the right of an undefined variable.

Suppress Implicit Multiplication

Turns off Mathcad's automatic insertion of an invisible multiplication sign between numbers and letters.

Recently Used Files

Sets the number of recently opened worksheets displayed in the File menu. The default is 4 worksheets.

Undo History

Controls how many actions can be undone. The history length can be set to any number between 20 and 200; the default value is 100.

File Locations Tab

Default Worksheet Location

Sets the directory that the Open and Save As dialog boxes point to the first time after starting the application. Also used to set the current working directory, which can be accessed from the worksheet by using the built-in variable CWD.

My Site

Sets the website that Mathcad maps to the My Site entry on the Resources toolbar.

HTML Options Tab

The HTML Options tab allows you to control how Mathcad exports documents to HTML format. Mathcad documents can be saved as HTML with images for math regions. These options can also be set on a per-document basis when using Save as Web Page.

Save images as

PNG: PNG is lossless, so files may be larger, but retain more image fidelity.

JPEG: If you select JPEG, you can also set the compression Quality. The higher you set this value, the less the images are compressed and the larger the resulting files will be.

Web page template

Choose a template file, if desired. Templates wrap your Mathcad document with additional HTML output. Templates are useful for creating a uniform look and navigation to many Mathcad documents when creating large websites. See the Author's Reference for additional instructions.

Warnings Tab

The Warnings tab sets Mathcad to flag, with a green wavy underscore, any region that redefines an existing mathematical term. By doing so, you can more easily trace the redefinition of functions, variables, and units, to track calculation errors in your worksheet. Mathcad notifies you when the worksheet redefines either built-in or user-defined terms.

Show warnings on redefinitions of

Built In Functions: Flags when a function name is redefined, highlighted with a green wavy line below the redefined name.

Units: Flags when a built-in unit is redefined as a variable.

Constants: Flags when a built-in constant such as "pi" is redefined.

Variables: Flags when a built-in variable is redefined. Mathcad's built-in variables are TOL, CTOL, ORIGIN, CWD, PRNPRECISION, PRNCOLWIDTH, ERR, and the input variables in0 - in9.

User Defined terms

Functions: Flags when the worksheet redefines a user-defined function.

Scalar Variables: Flags when the worksheet redefines a scalar.

Vectors and Matrices: Flags when the worksheet redefines an array element.

Script Security tab

The Script Security tab allows you to control how Mathcad handles scriptable components. Scriptable Components can use a scripting language, such as VBScript or JScript, to control the interaction between Mathcad and the underlying application, and may potentially contain harmful code.

High Security

Automatically disables all scriptable components present in a worksheet when that worksheet is opened. To enable a disabled component, right-click on it and choose Enable Evaluation.

Medium Security

Prompts you when opening a worksheet containing a scriptable component. Clicking on "Yes" disables all scriptable components in the worksheet.

Low Security

Opens the worksheet without disabling scriptable components.

Language Tab

The Language tab controls how Mathcad handles language and country-specific settings.

Menus and dialogs

Specifies the language for menus and dialogs.

Math language

Specifies the language for functions and units.

Spell check language

Specifies the language for the spell checker. You have the choice of nine different languages or none.

Spell check dialect

Specifies the particular regional variety of the specified language for the spell checker.

Save Tab

The Save tab allows you to change settings for Autosave and default file format.

Autosave

Choose Autosave on or off. When Autosave is on, Mathcad saves a backup copy of each open worksheet at the end of the worksheet's Autosave period. Set the Autosave time period, in minutes, in the corresponding text box. If you close a worksheet with no errors, Mathcad removes the corresponding autosaved file. After a crash or other save failure, Mathcad prompts you to restore the autosaved versions when you open a file with an autosaved version. For previously unsaved files with no file name, the restore dialog appears the next time you start Mathcad.

Default format

Sets the default file format for saving Mathcad worksheets.

The available choices for file formats are:

Mathcad XML Document: a text-based file format suitable for integrating with other software systems. Files are saved with the .XMCD extension.

Mathcad Compressed XML Document: a binary version of the XML document format, which can be decoded into readable XML. Files are saved with the .XMCDZ extension.