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This demo will show you how to get started with MathXpert. It takes ten or fifteen minutes to go through it. After that you’ll be up and running.

The demo contains pictures showing how MathXpert works. They are just pictures—you can’t expect to click on pictures of menus and buttons.

Just click on the Next or Previous links in the bottom corners, noton the pictures. Later, if you want to view certain pages again, use the Contents link.

Every detail about all the features of MathXpert is in the online help.This demo just covers the basics.

Getting started with

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You may be uncertain which topic to select. Pick one similar to thechapter you’re studying, or that seems to match your problem. If in doubt, choose one of the Review topics.

The first thing you do is pick a topic. This tells MathXpert what kind of of problem you intend to solve. You can use the menus to pick a topic.(If you have Algebra Assistant, you have a Problem menu instead of an Algebra menu.)

The “topics” shown in thispicture are the five items inthe submenu on the right.

Picking a topic

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There is another way to select a topic. Instead of using the menus, you can click the big Work a ProblemButton on MathXpert’s first screen:

When you click that button,you’ll go to the Book Dialog,which you’ll see on the next slide.

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The Book Dialog provides the same choices as the menus, but in larger print and with more visual appeal.

To select a topic from the Book Dialog:• Click on the Algebra, Pre-Calculus, or Calculus tab at the left edge.• Click on a “chapter title” on the left page.• Double click a “topic” on the right page.•The page is just a menu in disguise.

The next slide shows how to pick “quadratic equations” from the Book Dialog.

Selecting a topic from the Book Dialog

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Then, to make the final selection, you double click.That will take you to another window to select a problem.

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MathXpert supplies about fifty problems for each topic. You can see them using Next and Previous, or the scroll bar. In the picture, we’re viewing problem 4.

To enter your own problem, you can use the Edit button, or select Type it In. For now we’ll just work with problem 4 as MathXpert supplies it.

To work with the problem currently displayed, click OK. (but remember, this screen is just a picture, not the actual program). Just go to the next slide to see where click OK leads.

This is a picture of the MathXpert problem selection window. You use it to choose or enter a problem you want to solve.

Problem Selection Window

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To take a step:

• You select part (or all) of the equation. MathXpert responds with a menu of things you can do with or to the selected expression.

•You pick an operation from that menu. MathXpert performs that operation, if possible.

The next slide will show you exactly how this works.

This is a calculation window. Here you willsolve your problem by taking one step at a time.

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Use the mouse to select the part of the equation you want to change. In this case we want to factor the left side of the equation,so we select the expression we want to factor.

The next slide will demonstrate selecting a term

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When you release the mouse to complete the selection,the selected expression is highlighted. Then a menu appears, giving you a choice of things you might be able to do to or with the selected expression.

The cursor changes to a hand shape when you approach the last line of your solution so far, to indicate that you can now start selecting an expression.

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You just saw how selection is done, but here it is in words.

• Move the cursor (that’s the arrow controlled by the mouse) to (a little beyond) the upper left of the term you want to select. • Press the (left) mouse button. Hold it down and drag to (a little beyond) the lower right corner of the expression.

• Release the mouse button.

Selecting an expression

The part about “a little beyond” is the key to easy andsuccessful selection. The selection box “snaps back”to the largest expression contained in the box, so it’s betterto select a rectangle a little larger than necessary.

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We select an operation from the menu. MathXpert will attempt to apply that operation to the selected expression.In this case it will succeed, as you’ll see on the next slide.

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The successful application of the operation hasgenerated the second line of our solution.

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To take another step, we select the entire equation, and choose the operation indicated in the picture.

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This operation broke our equation into two equations, and because the topic is quadratic equations, MathXpert has taken the simple step of solving the linear equation x-6=0 to get x=6. Under a more elementary topic, that step would not be performed automatically.

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Am I finished? I think I am. Let’scheck by clicking the Finished? Button.

Now, you could print your problem out,or save it to a file.

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You can use the Undo button to take back a line; the u key has the same effect. Holding down the u key a second or two, until it starts to repeat automatically, will undo all the way back to the beginning.

Now look at the other buttons at the top of the calculation window.Hint, AutoStep, ShowStep, and AutoFinish are all designed to help you when you don’t know what to do next. Let’s see how.

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This is what happens if you click Hint.

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When you click AutoFinish, MathXpert solves your problem completely and instantly.You can use AutoFinish at any time, for example when you have done the crucial steps and justwant MathXpert to do the final simplifications.

Of course, if you give MathXpert a sufficiently difficult problem, AutoFinish won’t be able to solve it,but it will work normal homework problems.

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Clicking AutoStep causes MathXpert to take one step of its suggested solution. You can use the s key on the keyboard to accomplish the same thing.

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Clicking ShowStep causes MathXpert to show you how to take a suggested next step, by selectingan expression for you and highlighting a suggested operation on the menu. MathXpert actually shows you how to move the cursor.

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About MathXpert’s solutions and yours

MathXpert “supports multiple solution paths”. That means that any correct solution you could dowith pencil and paper can be carried out in MathXpert. Often there are many correct ways to solve a problem.

On the other hand, if you ask MathXpert to solveyour problem, it produces just one solution. Thatis the solution that you get from AutoStep or AutoFinish.

Sometimes alternate solutions differ only in how they begin. If you take a crucial step or two by hand, then AutoFinish may generate a different solution than it would generate from the beginning.

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In MathXpert, you’re never more than one click away from a relevant graph. This graphshows the two solutions of the equation.

The Graph button

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Clicking Edit takes you back to the Problem SelectionWindow. From there you can select another problem,or change the problem by editing it, or type in a completelynew problem.

The Edit Button

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When you leave your calculation, for example by clicking Edit, you maysee this warning. Once you go backto the problem selection window, yourcalculation will be gone. If that’s not what you had in mind, you should save your work first, using File | Save from the menus.

Later, once you are familiar with MathXpert, you’ll probably want to turn these annoying warnings off by clicking the check box shown.

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Now we’ll show you a couple of variations onhow you perform a mathematical step with MathXpert.For example, suppose we want to subtract 2 from both sides of the following equation.

The next slide will demonstrate one way to do this.

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Now you would type in 2, since that’s what you want to subtract from both sides. When you click OK,the operation will be carried out.

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Another way to subtract 2 from both sides would be to just select the 2. Then you get the menu shown above. The question mark in the menu stands for the selected expression. This method is easier because you don’t have to type the 2, but it only works if the term you want to subtract is already visible on the screen.

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The next line that results from subtracting 2 from both sides could be different, depending on the topic you chose from the menus before selecting this problem. You might have chosenLinear equations (beginners) or you might have chosen Linear equations (practice).

Beginners need and get more detail.

After the first day, you want this instead.

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Now we’ll turn to making graphs. On MathXpert’s first screen thereis this button:

When you want to make a graph, you can either use the menus, or youcan click this button. The next slideshows where this button takes you.

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These pictures give you an idea of the different kinds of graphs you can makewith the aid of MathXpert. When you seethis screen in MathXpert, you can click onthe kind of graph you want to make.

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The same choices areavailable from the Graph menu.

This demo will show you only how the Graph y = f(x) choice works. You can explore the other kinds of graph for yourself. They are fully described in the online help.

If you only have Algebra Assistant or Precalculus Assistant, youwon’t have as many choices of types of graphs. Some kinds ofgraphs only make sense to calculus students. But you have allthe choices that make sense at your level of mathematics.

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Choosing Graph y = f(x) we get here:

This works just like theproblem entry window you already saw.

The problem showndoesn’t start with y=…You could have enteredit that way, but MathXpertwill supply the y =.

When you’re happy with the function to be graphed,you can click OK to accept that choice and see your graph.The next slide shows what will happen.

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This is your graph.

At the left is the Graph Toolbar, whichprovides you with some very useful buttons.

The next few slides will explainthe Graph Toolbar buttons.

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These three buttons control the parameter a. Its value can be increased or decreased with the + and – buttons, or if you click the a button itself, you can type in a new value, or change the amount that the + and – buttons use to increase or decrease the value of a.

The Parameter Buttons

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These four buttons are called the “zoom buttons”.They enable you to double the domain or the range of your graph, or cut the domain or ranges in half, with a single click.

For instance, if your graph runs from -2 to 2 on the x-axis,clicking the fat button in the second row will change it to run from -4 to 4.

Often zooming out or zooming in is enough to let you seethe features of interest in your graph.

The Zoom Buttons

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Rectangle Selection Buttons

These two buttons allow you to use the mouse to select a portion of your graph. After the rectangle is selected, click the Redraw button to seeyour new graph.

One of the buttons puts the center of the selectionrectangle at the point where you first press the mouse button. The other button puts a corner of the rectangle where you press the mouse button.In either case, drag until you like the rectangle’s position, then release the mouse button.

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The Hand

This button enables you to “grab” your graphand slide it, so that a different portion of the x-y plane is visible. This is often easier than typing innew numbers for the ranges of the x and y variables.

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The Point-Slope tool

This button calls to life the point-slope tool. The toolitself has two parts: a pair of “crosshairs” that determines a selected point in the x-y plane, and a small window that displays the values of x and y at the selected point, and (if applicable) the slope of the graph at that point.

You can drag the crosshairs along the curve, but they will stay“pinned” to the graph if possible.

Use this tool to find the numericalvalue of solutions to equations,maxima or minima of functions,Y-intercepts, etc.

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The Range button

The button enables you to type innew values for the ranges of values of the horizontal and vertical variables of your graph.(Those do not necessarily have to be the customaryx and y.) You will get the following dialog:

Please refer to the online help for a full explanation of the options you see here.

In this demo, we’re just trying to get you started successfully using MathXpert.

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Improving the appearance of your graph

• You can drag your graph’s title to another location, where you think it looks better.

• You can resize your graph (like any other window)by dragging the lower right-hand corner. Since the graph paper always has the same number of linesper inch, this can be useful in making each graphpaper square correspond to a nice round number.

Here are two things you can do with the mouseto improve your graph’s appearance.

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Graph Options

You can control every aspect of the appearance of your graph in MathXpert. Please look under the Options menuwhile you have a graph on-screen, and explore the possibilities.

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You’ve reached the end of the demo. As the author of MathXpert, I tried hardto make MathXpert easy to use, as well as mathematically powerful and educationally helpful. I wish you success in learning the subject that the famous mathematician Gauss called the Queen of Sciences.

You should be able to start using MathXpert successfully right now. If it is helpful, you can start two copies of MathXpert, and run this demo in one copy while you try it yourself in the the other copy.

After you have a few hours of experience, you should read the online help. There you may learn about some additional features of MathXpert that weren’tcovered in this demo.

Under the Help menu in MathXpert, there is an item that you can click to send email to the author. That email address is feedback@HelpWithMath.com.I want to hear your feedback.

You can also go to www.HelpWithMath.com for the latest information about MathXpert.

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Contents of the Demo

Work a Problem

Selecting a topicBook DialogSelecting or entering a problemSelecting an expressionChoosing and applying an operationButtons in the calculation window Finished Undo Hint AutoFinish AutoStep ShowStep Graph button

Make a Graph

Selecting a type of graphEntering a function to graphThe Graph Toolbar Parameter buttons Zoom buttons Rectangle selection buttons Hand Point-slope tool Range buttonImproving your graph’s appearanceGraph options

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