Sindbad~EG File Manager

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<h3>Will MathXpert work well with my textbook?</h3>
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 <td> Yes,  all textbooks in algebra, precalculus, and calculus cover essentially the same mathematics.  There may be 
 minor variations in the order in which the topics are presented,  but even that is constrained by the natural 
 order of prerequisites:  you can't learn a topic until you have already learned its prerequisite topics.  All textbooks
 must teach you to solve the same kinds of problems.   Whether you learn algebra in Pittsburgh or San Francisco or Warsaw or
 Beijing,  it's still algebra.
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 <td>  Therefore, to use MathXpert with your textbook, all you need to do is figure out which "topic" on MathXpert's menus 
 corresponds to today's chapter or section of your textbook.  This should usually be easy to do by comparing the topic 
 names in MathXpert to the chapter and section titles in your textbook.  If you are in doubt, just compare the homework problems
 from your textbook to the problems supplied with MathXpert for that topic.  Do they look similar?  Good.
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 <td> MathXpert can solve the problems from your textbook just as well as it can solve the problems that come with it.
 It never uses "pre-canned" solutions--it solves every problem individually, so it doesn't care if the problem came with MathXpert,
 or came from your textbook, or was made up on the spot.   (Of course, there is a limit to its intelligence--but it should be 
 able to handle textbook-level problems.)  Since it can (internally) solve your problem, it is in a position to offer you
 hints and advice, even when you haven't asked it to present a complete solution to you.
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 <td> Therefore, the only hurdle in solving problems from your textbook instead of problems that come with MathXpert
 is that you must somehow input those problems into MathXpert. There are two ways to accomplish that, depending on whether 
 your teacher and your whole class are using MathXpert, or just you.   If you're on your own,  you will have to 
 type the problems into MathXpert yourself.   You can select "Type it in"  instead of choosing a problem supplied
 by MathXpert,  or you may find it simple to choose "Edit" to start with a problem that is written in a form 
 acceptable to MathXpert.   
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 <td>  If you are a teacher, you can prepare a "problem file" for your students, containing a given homework assignment.  
 Then the students can open that file from the File menu in MathXpert, and just select the 
 problems, rather than needing to type them in themselves.
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 <td>  Incidentally,  our original plan was to supply the problems from commonly used textbooks.  We naively thought 
 that publishers would be glad to have us do that, since it would make their books more easily usable with MathXpert. 
 But it turns out that publishers view the homework problems in their texts as intellectual property--they are afraid that
 if you have an electronic copy of the problems, you won't buy the book.  This is particularly strange in view of the 
 fact that the problems are necessarily the most similar parts of different textbooks--if you want to distinguish your 
 textbook from others,  you need to do a better job of explaining things, but you need to present the same kind of 
 homework problems as every other textbook.  Ah well,  the world is full of strange things, and there are worse fates 
 than having to type your own problems into MathXpert in order to get its expert advice.
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