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What's new in Calcpad VM Pro 8


Calcpad VM Pro 8 is the paid professional version of Calcpad. Changes compared to Calcpad VM 7.7.3:

At a glance

  • Calcpad VM Pro. The program is now a commercial product, distributed under a paid license.
  • Strings. Text values in double quotes, with string functions, concatenation with "+", comparison operators, and strings inside vectors and matrices. Sorting, searching and lookup functions work with strings too.
  • Tables. The new table function displays a matrix as a formatted table. Seven styles, cell alignment, merged cells and colors. Tables are exported to Word, LaTeX and Markdown.
  • Data charts. Eleven new chart commands: $Line, $Fill, $Smooth, $Bar, $Column, $Scatter, $Pie, $Donut, $Radar, $Bubble and the combined $Chart.
  • Plot options. The new Plot.* options add titles, axis labels, legends, logarithmic and reversed axes, limits, steps, grid spacing, and series colors and line styles. They replace the old PlotWidth, PlotHeight… variables.
  • Special functions. 71 new functions: gamma, beta, error, exponential and trigonometric integrals, elliptic integrals, Jacobi elliptic, Bessel, Airy, zeta and Lambert W. Most of them also work in complex mode.
  • Statistical functions. Descriptive statistics, correlation, linear regression, ranks, frequencies, combinatorics and eight probability distributions.
  • Financial functions. pv, fv, pmt, nper, rate, ipmt, ppmt, npv, irr and mirr. They work like the Excel functions.
  • CoolProp. Eleven new CP. functions for the thermophysical properties of more than 100 fluids and of humid air, calculated by the included CoolProp library, e.g. CP.Props("D"; "T"; 25°C; "P"; 1atm; "Water"). Inputs with units are converted to SI.
  • New math functions. log1p and ln1p stay accurate when x is small. geomean returns the geometric mean.
  • Number formats. Scientific notation input (3.4e+6). Numbers in bases 2 to 16 for input (FF_16) and output (x:_2, #format _16).
  • LaTeX export. Save the report as a *.tex file with native LaTeX math, or as a *.zip with the images for Overleaf. The CLI supports it too.
  • Page header. The #Header keyword puts the report into your company header template. Project, client, date and other fields are filled from macros and can be edited in the output.
  • Spell checking. Comments and strings are spell checked in multiple languages. Misspelled words are underlined, and you can hover over them to see suggestions.
  • Editor. A new Insert → Plot menu and new categories in the insertion dialog. Forms for CoolProp functions, plot options and table options. A Units tab below the editor. Context-aware auto-complete for Plot., Table., Color., Style., CP. and HTML tags. Strings and number bases are highlighted.
  • Syntax changes. Headings are now written as '"Title. Function names are case sensitive. mean is now the arithmetic mean. See "Upgrading from 7.7.3" below.

Upgrading from 7.7.3

Some changes in 8.00 can affect existing worksheets. Check the following before you run older files:

Change Version 7.7.3 Version 8.00
Headings "Title '"Title: a single quote, then a double quote, at the start of the line. Text in double quotes is now a string, so an old-style heading is reported as an unclosed string.
Function names Built-in names were not case sensitive: Sin(x) and SIN(x) worked. All function names are case sensitive and all built-in functions are lower case. Sin(x) is undefined, unless you define it as a custom function.
mean Geometric mean Arithmetic mean (an alias of average). Use geomean for the geometric mean.
Plot settings Variables PlotWidth, PlotHeight, PlotSVG, PlotAdaptive, PlotPalette, PlotSmooth, PlotShadows, PlotLightDir and PlotStep Options Plot.Width, Plot.Height, Plot.Svg, Plot.Adaptive, Plot.Palette, Plot.Smooth, Plot.Shadows, Plot.LightDirection and Plot.MapStep. The old variables no longer affect plots.
Default plot size 400 × 250 px 500 × 300 px
Comments Text in single or double quotes Only single quotes start a comment. To include a single quote in a comment, type it twice: ''.

All examples that come with the program have been updated to the new syntax.

When you open an older file, headings in the form "Title and the old plot variables, e.g. PlotWidth, are automatically converted to '"Title and Plot.Width. The same applies to included files and to the command line interpreter.


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