Prime 5 General Meaning

[sm�ller-2]

Hallo,

a repating question about Prime 5.

Has the all new Mathcad now ALL Features of the loving Mathcad 15?

Then i will test it in my company to suggest it.

The new optic and the possibility to make a text area with WORD functionality looks good to me.

lg

Stefan

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

Despite advertising claims, Mathcad Prime 5 still falls short of the capabilities of Mathcad 15.  If your company is generating reports as you claim then even 15 would have been challenged to provide acceptable graphs.  Prime 5 with its new embedded plotting widget has been the target of severe criticism in this forum.

Read some of the posts, there are a lot of issues.

[Werner_E]

https://community.ptc.com/t5/PTC-Mathcad/Prime-5-General-Meaning/m-p/577556/highlight/false#

> Has the all new Mathcad now ALL Features of the loving Mathcad 15?

By way no - not even close.

Prime is a huge step backwards! A lot of Mathcad 15 features are still missing and as it looks now despite their advertising PTC has no intention to bring Prime to the level Mathcad was more than 10 years ago.

Prime is slow, the handling is awkward (some compared it to using a software with a pair of boxing gloves on) and is still missing so many features. I would never suggest using Prime for anything serious.

Prime has a few improvements, though (which in my opinion by far don't outweigh the drawbacks) - units in odesolve solve blocks, better ways to input matrices (worse way to display and scroll them) and the ability to use the full memory installed in your PC. Plotting capabilities are even much more worse than in Mathcad and the new 2D-plots in Prime 5 are not really an improvement.

The word processing abilities are worse than in Mathcad and the look and fell of the ribbon interface may be subject of personal favor - a fact is that simple operation now require a lot more clicks than in MC.

So the general advise here is: If you are already using Mathcad 15 then keep using it as long as it runs on current hardware and OS. If you are looking for a new tool to use - forget Prime and Mathcad and look somewhere else.

Give it a try yourself but don't expect big improvements!

[sm�ller-2]

OK thank you thats so bad 😞 a 15 year old software is even better than the actual one consider the anual payment it seems to be not worth. 

I dont understand the reduced functionality seems to be that mathcad is dying 😞

Why is PTC not listening to the community.

I dont see any serious alternative to Mathcad with that whiteboard 2D formula input style.

But the graphical view of the formulas looks better than in Mathcad 15. 

I read about problems with units....

I just read Prime 5 offers a second y axis. Wow that was with mathcad 15 also possible lol? 

And they sell it as new feature lol? Serious???????????????????????????

I was thinking switching to a moore modern software would give improvements

[Fred_Kohlhepp · Accepted solution]

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@sm�ller-2 wrote:

Why is PTC not listening to the community.

 I dont see any serious alternative to Mathcad with that whiteboard 2D formula input syle.

Smath is free, looks like Mathcad, reads Mathcad 15 files (mostly) and suppports units

[-MFra-]

Hi, .... I would say that SMATH is a poor imitation of mathcad 15.

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

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@-MFra- wrote:

Hi, .... I would say that SMATH is a poor imitation of mathcad 15.

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Agreed.  But it's free.

How would you compare Smath to Prime?

[sm�ller-2]

*deleted*

[LucMeekes]

In addition to all remarks above, also note that "there's no way back" in Prime.

You can convert a Mathcad (version 1 to 15) file to Prime, however there is no provision to convert a Prime file back to Mathcad (version 15 or before) file format.

And Prime 5 will open Prime version 4, 3.1, 3, 2 and 1 files, but cannot save to any of those formats, and Prime 4 will not open a Prime 5 file, nor will Any other Prime version before 5.

Luc

[sm�ller-2]

omg you serious?

Wow thats confusing. Good that there is such a nice compatibility.....

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

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@LucMeekes wrote:

however there is no provision to convert a Prime file back to Mathcad (version 15 or before) file format.

Luc

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SURE there is _ _ _keyboard entry!    

[sm�ller-2]

Thank you! Actually im validating smath. But importing from a .xlsm excel file with makro is not possible so i cannot use it 😞

[sm�ller-2]

Thank you! Actually im validating smath. But importing from a .xlsm excel file with makro is not possible so i cannot use it 😞

[VladimirN]

And what's stopping you from using 15 version?

[sm�ller-2]

Sometimes Mathcad is not saving the excel file after exporting a result Matrix.

Second issue is that Mathcad cannot calculate some Calculations because of the strange failure message: Not enough working memory. Even i have 80 percent working memory left. Third issue is that i prefer a Version with better possibilities for Diagrams and Word featues. Working with long calculations (>30 Pages for example). 

Mathcad has some limitations regarding long calculations.... And its already very very old lol. I prefer modern software 😉

[Werner_E]

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 I prefer modern software 😉

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I, too would prefer a more up to date and improved version of Mathcad 15. Prime unfortunately sure is no option at all and so you'll have look for something else. You sure will loose the whiteboard interface and a lot of other convenient features doing so, but PTC gives us no choice.

[skunks]

Sehr geehrter Herr Professor,

leider ist das Prime für die (zugegeben) primitive Ingenieursmathematik ausreichend,

für Mathematiker wie Sie ist das sicherlich nicht genug.

Wir nutzen dieses Tool für unsere Festigkeitsnachweise der fliegenden Bauten, wobei ein Support nicht in Kauf genommen wird, da entbehrlich. Streng genommen könnte man Prime 3.0 oder 3.1 als Endversion verwenden, etwas Besseres ist hier, auch langfristig, nicht zu erwarten.

[Werner_E]

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leider ist das Prime für die (zugegeben) primitive Ingenieursmathematik ausreichend,

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No need to be sorry if thats the way you see it - if Prime meets your needs then by all means use it. But I  guess that many engineers here may disagree with your statement here.

Compared to Mathcad 15 Prime is still a huge step backwards, though, and given the development and support it has shown so far it would be irresponsible to suggest Prime (or Mathcad) as a vital tool for nowadays engineers.

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etwas Besseres ist hier, auch langfristig, nicht zu erwarten

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and thats the sad truth

[LucMeekes]

You mean PTC will do it for you...?

Luc

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

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@LucMeekes wrote:

You mean PTC will do it for you...?

Luc

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ROFL