Home
Getting Started
Sym is a tool for creating and manipulating symbolic content. By symbolic content, we mean both mathematical expressions and other symbolic content (source code is one example). Almost anything that can be represented as a tree of symbols can potentially be content in Sym. The topics in the Getting Started section of the documentation cover installing Sym and starting to use Sym.
Documents
Every document has two main components; the document content that you create and the libraries that define the objects and functionality available in the document. Documents will nearly always have a reference to least one library. Without any libraries loaded there would be virtually no functionality available in the document.
Creating a New Document
Documents are created, opened, and saved in the standard way from the File menu, or by using standard keystrokes such as Ctrl + S. The following section describes the procedures for creating a new document.

Getting Started
Sym is a tool for creating and manipulating symbolic content. By symbolic content, we mean both mathematical expressions and other symbolic content (source code is one example). Almost anything that can be represented as a tree of symbols can potentially be content in Sym. The topics in the Getting Started section of the documentation cover installing Sym and starting to use Sym.
- Installing Sym
  Sym includes a Windows installer. The installation requirements and info about the install destination are listed below.
- Using Sym
  To get started using Sym, you need to understand the basics of how documents and content are created and edited.
- Documents
  Every document has two main components; the document content that you create and the libraries that define the objects and functionality available in the document. Documents will nearly always have a reference to least one library. Without any libraries loaded there would be virtually no functionality available in the document.
  - Creating a New Document
    Documents are created, opened, and saved in the standard way from the File menu, or by using standard keystrokes such as Ctrl + S. The following section describes the procedures for creating a new document.
  - Libraries and References
    The functionality in any document depends upon which libraries are referenced. A reference is an entry shown in the Document Explorer that indicates that the specified library is loaded into the current document. Libraries serve as a container for definitions of objects, commands and functionality.
  - Adding and Removing References
    References determine which libraries are included in a document. The libraries included in the document define the list of objects and much of the functionality that can be used to create and manipulate expressions in the current document. For example, if you add a reference to the Calc.eql library to a document, then the Calc library along with the Trig and Math libraries will be loaded in the document and there will be definitions and functionality for objects like limits, derivatives, and integrals in current document.
  - Online Documents
    Documents that are located online can be opened in Sym. These documents can be edited like any other document, but you must specify a directory and file name when you first save a document that was opened from an online location.
  - Customizing the Screen Layout
    The locations of the windows that make up the Sym application can be customizable by the user. Windows can be undocked and left floating, or re-docked in the same or a new location. The window and document configuration is saved when the application is closed. When the application is restarted, the last configuration will be restored.
  - Creating and Editing Content
    Content is contained in modules and can consist of both text and expressions. The content of a document is primarily contained in Document Modules.
- Commands
  Commands are used both to construct and manipulate expressions. Typically, single-character keystrokes are used to invoke commands. For example, the "s" keystroke normally runs the Simplify command on the highlighted expression.

Creating a New Document

Documents are created, opened, and saved in the standard way from the File menu, or by using standard keystrokes such as Ctrl + S. The following section describes the procedures for creating a new document.

There are two parts to creating a new document; creating the document and adding references to libraries.

Select File > New... from the menu bar. If a document is currently open, you will be prompted to save the file before creating the new document (if it has changed). To create a new document and keep the existing document open, start a new instance of the application.
Select a directory and enter a file name for the new document, then click Save.
If the Document Explorer isn't open, you can open it by selecting View > Document Explorer (Shift + F2) from the main menu.
To add another Document module, right-click the any location that allows adding these modules and select Add document module from the context menu. These modules can be added under the root of the document by right-clicking on the root node at the top of the Document Explorer tree. They can also be added under any other document module and to libraries and folders inside of libraries. In these cases, the document modules are commonly used to document the functionality in the library.
Provide a name and press the Enter key.
To add another module, right-click the level under which the new module should appear and follow the steps above. Any number of document modules can be added to the main document.
To change the libraries referenced in the document, open the Object Explorer by selecting View > Document Explorer (Shift + F2) and edit the References. See Adding and Removing References for more details.