PTC Mathcad: How to print an e-book in its entirety

[ptc-1346180]

I'm attempting to create an internal e-book for our company which can be used to perform a complex computation we are working on. However, after creating separate xmcd files such as: splash screen, TOC, and some content pages, I cannot figure out how to print the entire book. I would like to be able to have the user print the book as a reference, but still be able to create their own version usign the e-book copy and paste function to their own document.

Does anyone have any idea how this can be done?

[Werner_E]

AFAIK there no way to do this, at leaast not out of the box. I doubt that it could be done with some kind of sphisticated scripted components which load the single worksheets in the right sequence and print.

What about linking at the index page of your e-book to a pdf you provide along with your ebook where you had collected the printouts of the whole book?

[RichardJ · Accepted solution]

A script would be the only possibility. It could either figure out the sequence from the TOC, or the sequence could be hard coded into the script (a lot less elegant, but easier). Then it would have to load the worksheets, print them using Worksheet.printall, then close the worksheets. Definitely doable, but a fair amount of work to write it.

[ptc-1346180]

Wow, that's intense. I'd imagine someone has already solved this. Does anyone want to share such a script?

[tietjee]

i agree that it is nearly impossible to print an ebook. my only comment would be, if you are planning to use the ebook with prime. my understanding is prime will not support ebooks. hopefully it will be added. i found it a good method to document large reports. the down side is presentation outside of engineering. program manager, atleast in our office, do not have mathcad nor the skills to use the program.

let me know if you do find a simple solution.

regards,

[HarveyHensley]

Carl,

I think Werner's suggestion regarding using a pdf file is good and much easier than the script approach. If you have multiple Mathcad files in the book, just make them into multiple pdf files which is easy to do. Then zip them together. Provide the link to the zip file. When the user extracts all of the files, he/she can select all of them, right click, then print. All of the files will be printed in the order listed in the folder. If you name the files alphabetically, then they will print in the right order.

[Werner_E]

Harvey Hensley schrieb:

Carl,

I think Werner's suggestion regarding using a pdf file is good and much easier than the script approach. If you have multiple Mathcad files in the book, just make them into multiple pdf files which is easy to do. Then zip them together. Provide the link to the zip file. When the user extracts all of the files, he/she can select all of them, right click, then print. All of the files will be printed in the order listed in the folder. If you name the files alphabetically, then they will print in the right order.

With most pdf-creators (the freeware PDF Creator at http://www.pdfforge.org comes to mind) you can collect a bunch of print jobs and combine them into a single pdf-file. No need to create a crowd of single files. I'm not sure if this would be an options for Carl.

One drawback with a scripted solution using Worksheet.printall could be, that the output is sent immediatly to the standard printer. I don't know if it would be possible to prepend a printer selection dialog the selection of which is then used automatically for all automatic printouts.

[HarveyHensley]

Werner Exinger wrote:

With most pdf-creators you can collect a bunch of print jobs and combine them into a single pdf-file. No need to create a crowd of single files.

I guess I would have to upgrade to a better pdf creator. My CuteWriter (free version) doesn't appear to have that capability, but it looks like the Pro version might.

[Werner_E]

I guess I would have to upgrade to a better pdf creator. My CuteWriter (free version) doesn't appear to have that capability, but it looks like the Pro version might.

You could give the free PDF Creator (http://www.pdfforge.org/) a try. A commercial one I liked to use in the past was pdffactory.

[HarveyHensley]

Werner,

Thanks for the info and I'll definitely give pdfforge a try.

[ptc-1346180]

I thank everyone who have contributed to the discussion. It's interesting that such a thing is not possible. What about convering the entire e-book to HTML somehow and then printing using a browser? This would not be ideal but it could work correct?

[Werner_E]

Carl Moller schrieb:

I thank everyone who have contributed to the discussion. It's interesting that such a thing is not possible. What about convering the entire e-book to HTML somehow and then printing using a browser? This would not be ideal but it could work correct?

What would be the benefit compared to a pdf?

[RichardJ]

How would you convert them to HTML? You could do it by hand, but that's no better than converting to pdf by hand. Or you could convert to HTML (or pdf for that matter) using a script, but that script would be no easier to write then the one that printed directly.

[VladimirN]

Like this?

[Werner_E]

VladimirN. schrieb:

Like this?

Thats what Richard was talking about. Doing it by hand, as you suggest, is the same work as printing the pages singly into a collected pdf. It even means more work as your method produces a bunch of html-sheets that would have to be printed singly. So you would have to combine them to work as demanded.

As the goal seems to be to give the user the ability to print the whole handbook at once, I guess the pdf approach is the best so far.

[VladimirN]

Werner Exinger wrote:

Thats what Richard was talking about. Doing it by hand, as you suggest, is the same work as printing the pages singly into a collected pdf. It even means more work as your method produces a bunch of html-sheets that would have to be printed singly...

But we do not know how many pages contained in this e-book.

[Werner_E]

VladimirN. schrieb:

Werner Exinger wrote:

Thats what Richard was talking about. Doing it by hand, as you suggest, is the same work as printing the pages singly into a collected pdf. It even means more work as your method produces a bunch of html-sheets that would have to be printed singly...

But we do not know how many pages contained in this e-book.

No, we don't and I think that does not matter anyway.

The point is that printing every exported html singly is the same effort for the end user as to print directly from Mathcad file by file. Creating those html would be the same or more effort for the author as to produce the pdf. That all regardless of the size of the handbook.

[ptc-1346180]

This really is something that MATHCAD should implement. Since the native format for MATHCAD is supposed to be "XML," then implementing some sort of HTML export should be possible on their end.

This would be preferable to PDF as a start since hyperlinks and TOCs would be simpler to generate. There are already plenty of tools to convert HTML to PDF with hyperlinks etc.

One would think this type of feature would be available. Clearly this sort of back flip manual approach is not ideal with any decent e-book.

This does seem to be an interesting topic and one that people seem to want.

Regarding the save to web page...this is great for one single page, but links are not "travesed" and subsequent links updated. One would need to export each page, then change all links to work correctly, then export to PDF... not ideal but I supposed it could work.

[Werner_E]

So you want the html/pdf output hyperlinked for reference and not (only) for printing? Thats something different from your original demand. It wouldn't be that urgent a need for me to have such feature, though, as if somebody is without Mathcad the reference would be of minor meaning anf if there is access to Mathcad, you would use the original e-book.

[ptc-1346180]

How about just dragging all sections from the e-book into a single MathCAD file, then one print operation. That might be a reasonable export. One could export to PDF at that point quite easily. Hyperlinks would be lost of course but that's not super critical as previously discussed.

[HarveyHensley]

Or, you could write the ebook as one file in the first place. Then, when you request a print from the ebook, the entire book would print. Or, if you took the original single MC file, you could save it as html and I think the links would still work.

In other words, ignore the chapter setup for ebooks and supply your own internal chapter links within one file.

[Werner_E]

It depends upon what the goal should be. The method you suggest is somewhat cumbersome and quite errorprone. And it could result in errors simply because the stacking of the sheets in a single one result in a different situation. Suppose a variable t is defined as range variable for plotting a function and then is used in a part which stems from another sheet in a symbolic calculation. The latter could fail as t has already a value.

What I had understood is: You create a Mathcad e-book for people/coworkers at your company and you would like to give them the opportunity to print out the whole thing at once.

What I had in mind was: When you are finished with your e-book you would open every single sheet of that book in the order you think is appropriate (and you know best as you wrote it) and print it to a pdf printer. This is sure not more work than to copy (and at least rearrange, maybe even rewrite and edit) every sheet into a "master sheet". Most pdf printers (like the free PDF creator e.g.) have the capability to collect different printjobs and merge them into a single pdf automatically. So at the end you will have produced a single pdf which works for your coworkers as demanded - they can print it as if Mathcad would have a printall command. As the e-book is not supposed to change (unless you provide a revised edition and have to go through the whole procedure again) there is no drawback on the part of the users. You could make the pdf part of your ebook-distribution and link to it from the TOC so all is nice and tidy.

[ptc-1346180]

Yes, I think as you mentioned this would probably be the best work-around at this point. Ideally if this kind of thing was programmed into MC it would be useful.

Cheers!