Preparing PDF files with Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word

The PDF format is a good format for presenting mathematical and technical content on the Internet because the Adobe Acrobat Viewer is nearly universally available, and the format allows software to include in the PDF document all the fonts that are necessary to render mathematics well. Further, the format supports hyperlinking and bookmarks.

Version 5 of Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word now supports pdfTeX

Now in Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word you can typeset your file with pdfLaTeX to produce a PDF file. You can, of course, still typeset with LaTeX to produce a DVI file. The Typeset menu has three additional items: Preview PDF, Print PDF, and Compile PDF.

When you use pdfLaTeX, you can also use several LaTeX packages that previously have not been supported by Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word because they require PostScript printers. These packages, including rotating and the PSNFSS font packages, can now be used when you compile with pdfTeX. When the hyperref package is included in your document, the PDF file produced is fully hyperlinked with links in the table of contents and with hierarchical bookmarks that reflect the structure of your LaTeX document.

One problem with pdfLaTeX has been that it allows only a very few graphics file formats, so to get the benefits of producing a PDF file, you had to forego using most graphics file formats. Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word solve this problem by converting all the graphics embedded in your document to PDF format before calling pdfLaTeX.

In the past it was possible to produce PDF files from Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Word by printing the DVI file using the Acrobat Distiller printer driver. This method, however, does not preserve the hyperlinks in your LaTeX document. This is still the only method of producing PDF files with Scientific Notebook.

View a PDF white paper created using pdfLaTeX.
View the .tex file used to create the above file.