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cmichalski1-Visitor
1-Visitor
November 13, 2015
Solved

How to migrate MathCad 11 files?

  • November 13, 2015
  • 14 replies
  • 5621 views

So I finally had to get a new PC and move to Windows 7.  So I lost my MathCad 11 installed on XP.  I popped in the disk and after installing I'm told that PTC was "nice" enough to not let you activate the old license anymore.  However, when I download the new Prime it doesn't recognize my old MathCad 11 files.  I never upgraded because it had all the functionality I needed, but now it seems my files might as well be written in Sanskrit.

Is there any way to continue using these files?  Or am I stuck with now figuring out how to rewrite them in Excel? (because I'm not about to trust PTC to not do the same thing again in the future and leave me high and dry)

Best answer by Werner_E

MC15 sure can read your version 11 files. Most files will run as suspected but there are a few changes made from 11 to 14 - mainly the static type checking and the change of the symbolic engine from Maple to MuPad. So maybe some files could require some changes.

There is no difference between Prime and Prime Express other than when you use your installed version without a paid license after the trial period, it will not be able to recalculate sheets using symbolics or programming, etc. Prime and Prime Express are the very same program - its the the license file which decides if the advanced features are locked or not and after the trial period they will be locked.

And Mathcad 15 is fully functional during the trial period and after that will not work at all.

So you can try to convert your files and see if they work under Prime without buying anything as long as both Prime and Mathcad 15 are still in their trial period.

> then buy Prime 3 but use the license key to run 15 in order to work with my existing files again?

If your files don't run OK in Prime but work in MC 15, yes. If your files seem to work well in Prime, too, its your decision which way to go. Mathcad 15 will be supported and maintained for a while (at least up to the release of Prime 5, I think) but the future (unfortunately) is Prime.

Werner

14 replies

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Werner_E25-Diamond I
25-Diamond I
November 14, 2015

Hmm, bad news. Looks your only option is to resort to some sort of creative(?) solution to be able to use your paid for version of MC11 again - absolutely unsatisfying.

So what is it you can do the legal way? So you didn't buy Prime but downloaded Prime 3.1 and it will now work a month in full mode. After that time it will fall back in a crippled, so called Express, mode - no symbolics, no programming, no advanced plots (what PTC thinks is advanced), etc.

There is a converter which converts tries to convert files in older format to Prime format. To make it work its necessary to have a full installation of a current Mathcad 15 running on your machine. You could use the trial version of Mathcad 15 to do the job. Depending on the feature your sheet is using you may have luck and the conversion succeeds and all you have to do is to edit the new Prime sheet concerning page breaks, headers etc. But be prepared that quite often (I tend to say too often) something goes wrong and you will end up trying to find a workaround to make Prime do what MC11 did. Ever so often you will end up with a non-working sheet.

As you say that you have just calculation sheets which you even could  redo in Excel, I would suspect that in your case the conversion to Prime will succeed most of the time. Basic functionality is already implemented in Prime.

So download quickly the MC15 trial -> Thank You for Your Interest in PTC Mathcad 15 | PTC and give it a try.

If you buy Prime you get Mathcad 15 for free (I see it the other way round) so at least you have a version you can really make your work with and can testdrive a new version which maybe in some years is nearly as powerful as Mathcad 11 is.

> (because I'm not about to trust PTC to not do the same thing again in the future and leave me high and dry)

In some way they already did so. Prime 3.1 cannot save in Prime 3.0 format and of course Prime 3.0 can't read files in P3.1 format. So many members of this forum cannot answer questions of users which post files in 3.1 format because they, like me ,are still using Prime 3.0 - better said: they USE Mathcad 15 but have still just Prime 3.0 installed alongside.

But the good news are that Prime is downward compatible - Prime 3.1 can read files in Prime 3.0 format! Hurray! You haven't expected that from PTC, didn't you?

If you just want to see how a small number of your Mathcad 11 worksheets perform in Prime and you are able to post them here in the public, you could ask for some good soul here doing the conversion for you so you quickly can see if those files do what you want in Prime, too.

Werner

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cmichalski1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
November 16, 2015

Thanks for the feedback Werner.  I did download the Prime 3.1 Express to try to at least open and save those files as PDFs or something.  Apparently you can't open MCAD11 in Prime, it is a different file format and won't open.  So I tried to download 15 but everytime I put in my license information and it goes to the web to validate the license it returns an error that that webpage is not correct.  If I try to reassign my existing license I get an error that I am not a current subscription user.  If I try to get a new license file I get an error of HTTP/1.1 Service Unavailable.

So neither of the options that the Prime website seems to offer will work.  But unfortunately without actually opening and looking at the files I'm not sure which one(s) I could post here to see how they function in newer software without breaking confidentiality.

L
LucMeekes23-Emerald IV
23-Emerald IV
November 16, 2015

I'm assuming you bought a new PC for Win7. Do you still have the XP machine.......and with Mcad 11 on it?

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