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mshaw-21-Visitor
1-Visitor
April 11, 2014
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How do I create a two column document in Mathcad 15?

  • April 11, 2014
  • 3 replies
  • 13719 views

Hello,

How do I create a two column document in Mathcad 15? I would like to mimic the format seen in technical journals that puts both text and equations in two columns on each page. The content at the bottom of the left column would lead into the content at the top of the right column, just like in a newspaper.

There is not a formatting option to do this, but is there a way to adjust page width, or text and math box width to get the same result. There seem to be two big problems with trying to manually manipulate a document into a two column format.

  1. The math will not function properly. Since Mathcad uses a top down variable assignment structure, any variable in the top right hand column would come before the same variable in the bottom left hand column.
  2. Automatically forcing down blocks of equations and text would cause document formatting disasters if a user had to manually position the contents of an entire document.

Thank you for your help.

Best answer by HarveyHensley

Matthew,

I have a method that appears to work okay. You will need the free cutepdf program available at cutepdf.com. Similar programs may also work.

  1. Create a new form (paper size) in Windows using the procedure found on the FAQ page on the cutepdf website. The size should be 4.25 in x 11 in.
  2. In devices and printers, set cutepdf Writer as the default printer. Right click on the printer picture and then click on set as default printer. This step is needed so the new form size will show up in mathcad.
  3. Open your Mathcad program and go to page setup. Select the new form. Set the margins. I used 0.25 in margins on left and right.
  4. Create your worksheet. If your worksheet was already created, you may have to resize text regions within the new page size.
  5. Print to cutepdf file as normal, using the single column form and portrait. DON'T print two columns per sheet at this step.
  6. Open the pdf file created in step 5 with Adobe reader.
  7. Keep cutepdf writer as the printer in Adobe, but select letter size paper this time.
  8. Click on "multiple" , select "custom" and fill in 2 by 1 in the fields on the right. The example figure should show two side by side columns of the first two pages.
  9. Click on "print" to create another pdf file with the two column layout. You probably should give this file a new name.
  10. You probably should reset your normal printer as the default if you are through with the two column needs for awhile.

Now you have a pdf file in two column format that you can send to a publisher. Or you can print the file by selecting your printer in Adobe and making sure that letter size is selected and that you have not opened the multiple option for this printing.

I have attached a simple example of the final product.

Update: the above works for Mathcad 15, not Prime.

3 replies

R
RichardJ19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
April 12, 2014

The Mathcad UI is like a whiteboard. It executes from top left to bottom right. There are no pages, let alone columns. The dashed lines you see for pages apply only to printing, not to the way the document calculates. It is possible to simulate what you want, in a limited way, by creating two text regions, one on the left of a "page" and one on the right. Then insert math in the text regions as needed. You can't insert graphs or anything else though, only text and math, so this approach is rather limited.

H
HarveyHensley12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
April 12, 2014

There may be a way, but a two column page will severely limit the size of your math equations.

I don't have all of the software needed, but I think the following approach might work. What you are really after is a two column document that you can publish or send to a publisher. This usually means a pdf file these days. So the end result is a pdf file with two columns, not a Mathcad program with two columns.

Start with Mathcad. Set the right margin to a little less than the midpoint of the 8.5" sheet of paper. The "little less" is to allow for a margin in the column. Set the left margin accordingly.

Now create your Mathcad worksheet normally, down that column, from page to page. Don't use any columns to the right. This will allow the worksheet to compute correctly in sequential manner.

Now comes the hard part. Find a pdf creator program that will print two pages per sheet of paper, in two columns. All odd pages will be in the left column and the following even page will be in the right column. PDFCreator doesn't do that, but I think you might be able to spend some money and get that capability. PDF Architect has a Forms addon that might be able to do it.

Good luck, and let us know here if you get something that works!

H
HarveyHensley12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
April 12, 2014

I see one more requirement for the pdf program. It has to be able to take what is within the margins of the Mathcad worksheet and put it into its own column margins. That could be hard to find. PDF Creator can put two pages on one sheet, but it includes the wide margin as part of the page, not just the text portion.

If you have a publisher in mind, maybe they have a program that can take your single narrow column and reformat it to a two column layout?

W
Werner_E25-Diamond I
25-Diamond I
April 12, 2014

This problem may be overcome if you create a new paper size which is half the width of the paper you intend the finished product to be on. You create this in the printer option dialog, not within Mathcad. After you have done this you can chose that paper size in Mathcad and create your worksheet. Using the appropriate software it could be possible to print two pages on one sheet of normal size, side by side. Not sure which software or printer driver would allow for that, maybe fineprint and pdffactory are worth a look.

H
HarveyHensley12-AmethystAnswer
12-Amethyst
April 13, 2014

Matthew,

I have a method that appears to work okay. You will need the free cutepdf program available at cutepdf.com. Similar programs may also work.

  1. Create a new form (paper size) in Windows using the procedure found on the FAQ page on the cutepdf website. The size should be 4.25 in x 11 in.
  2. In devices and printers, set cutepdf Writer as the default printer. Right click on the printer picture and then click on set as default printer. This step is needed so the new form size will show up in mathcad.
  3. Open your Mathcad program and go to page setup. Select the new form. Set the margins. I used 0.25 in margins on left and right.
  4. Create your worksheet. If your worksheet was already created, you may have to resize text regions within the new page size.
  5. Print to cutepdf file as normal, using the single column form and portrait. DON'T print two columns per sheet at this step.
  6. Open the pdf file created in step 5 with Adobe reader.
  7. Keep cutepdf writer as the printer in Adobe, but select letter size paper this time.
  8. Click on "multiple" , select "custom" and fill in 2 by 1 in the fields on the right. The example figure should show two side by side columns of the first two pages.
  9. Click on "print" to create another pdf file with the two column layout. You probably should give this file a new name.
  10. You probably should reset your normal printer as the default if you are through with the two column needs for awhile.

Now you have a pdf file in two column format that you can send to a publisher. Or you can print the file by selecting your printer in Adobe and making sure that letter size is selected and that you have not opened the multiple option for this printing.

I have attached a simple example of the final product.

Update: the above works for Mathcad 15, not Prime.

    W
    Werner_E25-Diamond I
    25-Diamond I
    April 13, 2014

    Well done, Harvey.

    I also noticed, that under Win7 you don't get the Printer selection button in Mathcads page setup dialog window. So probably setting the pdfprinter as default as you wrote is the only way here.

    I just tried your proposal, but I used a page of double height instead of half width. It worked OK but I just noticed that Mathcad will make the page breaks as it would be a normal sized page and not double height. Not sure if io made something wrong.

    H
    HarveyHensley12-Amethyst
    12-Amethyst
    April 13, 2014

    I just tried and 8.5x22 in form and it worked fine in Mathcad 15. This approach will allow longer lines, but they will be reduced in print size when printed.

    You probably didn't select the new form size in Mathcad.

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