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PCMI Undergraduate Faculty Program

Some MAPLE Resources

By

Andrew J. Bernoff
Harvey Mudd College




MAPLE, the algebra manipulation and grapghic visualization tool used in this course has been adopted by hundreds of colleges and universities and is very widely available. "MAPLE central" is the MAPLEsoft website, http://www.maplesoft.com where you can purchase a copy of MAPLE, find example worksheets, and look for the answer to your favorite MAPLE trivia questions. Two things to keep in mind if you need to obtain a copy of MAPLE -- at least  in the past MAPLE has not objected to academics purchsing the student edition for personal use, and MAPLE will provide a free copy of its software to Professor's developing course materials in a course where MAPLE is required.

Online Collections of MAPLE Worksheets

MAPLE Worksheets from the UFP Program

Juan Tolosa's Top 10 MAPLE Tips

  1. Always start a new worksheet, or a new chapter, with restart: . This make the sheet easier to re-execute independent of past definitions.
  2. When you find a particularly good way to do something make a note of it. Include an  explanation, and save it in a special folder ("my MAPLE folder"). Otherwise, after a while you will forget how it was done, and where it was.
  3. To break your input into several lines without executing it, use <Shift> <Enter>. This is particularly useful to neatly arrange long inputs, and to carry out "DO" loops. To insert a page break (for printing) after a region, highlight the left vertical bar of a Maple line and  type <Ctrl> <Enter> .
  4. Learn to insert text and execution groups at will. When you highlight the left vertical bar of a Maple line and you press the Text key on the menu ("T" key), Maple inserts a text line right before the line you highlighted. However, if you press the Command key("[>" key), Maple will insert a command line right after the highlighted line. To insert a Maple command before the line, press <Ctrl> M after highlighting the left bar.
  5. Use MAPLE online help . Say, to learn about the "plot" command, type ?plot; .The most useful thing about the information you get is the examples, which are at the end of the help page. You can copy them, paste them into your document, and carry out approppriate modifications. You can also go to the "help" menu and search the Glossary, or search by Topic, or by Text. The "help" menu even has a new user's tour.
  6. For animations involving several objects, e.g. plots, points, and lines, use "display" with the option "insequence=true". To learn more about this wonderful command, see examples in the help menu using ?display;.
  7. Use the web. It is an excellent source of MAPLE worksheets that you can  shamelessly copy. The MAPLE website is particularly useful, http://www.maplesoft.com. (Try the "Applications Center".)
  8. Use the "indent" and the "unindent" commands to divide a long worksheet  into sections and subsections. This is particularly useful for presentations. 
  9. Before saving a document, go to the Edit menu and select Remove Output -> From Worksheet. You will get a file that is a lot smaller. Outputs, especially graphs, use up a lot of memory. The Edit menu also has the Execute option, which allows you to execute a whole bunch of commands at once (highlight them prior to choosing Execute), or even the whole worksheet.
  10. Backup your work often. If you have performed a lot of operations and graphs, use restart or remove output from worksheet every now and then, or even save your work, quit, and restart Maple, to avoid nasty crashes.


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