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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 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.
Creating and Editing Expressions
Parentheses in Expressions
Parentheses are added to expressions automatically. There are a few cases where you may want to add parentheses that would not normally appear in the expression. A Parentheses object has been created for this purpose.

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.
    - Editing modes
      Keystrokes can be used to edit names of objects, text, numbers or to invoke commands on highlighted expressions. In some cases, a keystroke could be interpreted in several ways. As a result, there are three editing modes in the Sym application. The current mode determines how keystrokes are handled. Sym uses three different highlight colors to indicate the current edit mode.
    - Positioning Content
      In a Document module, content (both text and expressions) can be placed anywhere in the module just by double clicking in the moduele and then creating whatever text or expression you need. Content can be dragged with the mouse to position it in a document module but content can also be connected to other content to create something that behaves more like what you would expect in a typical word processor.
    - Creating and Editing Expressions
      - Symbolic Expressions - Overview
        Expressions are created using objects, for example, Equal, Add and Sub. The objects you can use to build expressions are defined in the libraries loaded into the current document.
      - Expression Rendering
        A rendering determines how an object is displayed on the screen. The process of converting the content of an expression into what's actually displayed on the screen is referred to as "rendering" the expression. By switching a module to a different notation, same objects can be displayed in more that one way. The rendering of an object is determined by the object definition and by the notation currently selected.
      - Highlighting Expressions
        When commands are applied to terms in expressions, the highlighted expression determines what the command actually does. What term is highlighted is controlled by either using the arrow keys or mouse clicks. Mouse click and drag can also be used to move one or more expressions in a Document module.
      - Building Expressions
        Many basic equations can be built using single character commands.
      - The Autocomplete Popup
        Single character commands like “+” or “=” are the quickest way to build common expressions like Add and Equal, but are too limited to create all of the objects needed. To simplify the process of creating symbolic expressions, a pop-up window appears when you type the name of an object into an empty box. The window displays an alphabetized list of symbolic objects that begin with the letter or letters you have entered into the box. The available objects include all objects that are defined in the libraries currently being loaded and whose name matches the characters typed. This matching ignores the object namespace.
      - Building Expressions Using the Space Object
        The simplest use of the autocomplete popup is to just put an object into the currently highlighted location in an expression. But the autocomplete popup can also be used to make a highlighted term in an expression the first parameter in a newly inserted parent term.
      - Editing Expressions Using the Ctrl+Space Object
        In addition to being used to insert new objects into an expression, the autocomplete popup can also be used with the CtrlSpace object to edit (or "rename") an existing expression.
      - Parentheses in Expressions
        Parentheses are added to expressions automatically. There are a few cases where you may want to add parentheses that would not normally appear in the expression. A Parentheses object has been created for this purpose.
    - Creating and Editing Text
      Text can be added to Document modules. Text can be indented, bulleted or numbered in the usual way, either using the button bar at the top of the module or by applying commands.
    - Creating and Editing Images and Graphs
    - Exporting Content
      Content in a Sym document can be exported to other formats including LaTeX and HTML. You can customize the export process and create your own functions that will export content to a custom format.
- 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.

Parentheses in Expressions

Parentheses are added to expressions automatically. There are a few cases where you may want to add parentheses that would not normally appear in the expression. A Parentheses object has been created for this purpose.

An simple example of the automatic addition of parentheses is the expression

In expressions like this, the parentheses are added as part of the rendering. This expression contains a Mult object and an Add object, but there is no additional object for the parentheses.

In a few cases, you may want to add parentheses where they wouldn't automatically be added to an expression. For example, it's common to create expressions like

to indicate associativity. Since this expression would normally appear without any parentheses, we can use the Parentheses object to create this expression. Note that the Parentheses object appears in a different color to make it easier to distinguish from parentheses that are added as part of a rendering.

To create this expression,

Create a + b as usual (see Building Expressions)
Press the spacebar - note that this creates the Space object with "a + b" in the first parameter and an empty box (highlighted) as the second parameter
Type "parentheses". This opens the autocomplete popup
Select the Parentheses object from the autocomplete popup
Create " + c" as usual.

Adding parentheses is generally something you will only want to do after an expression has been manipulated to its final form. Typically, the commands are not designed to work with the Parentheses object. For example, the expression

will simplify but this expression

containing a Parentheses object won't simplify.