TechEditor is a development environment for technical documentation and engineering calculations that provides high-quality document formatting combined with advanced calculation capabilities. The program allows you to type text in a text editor, and perform calculations, programming mini-applications, build charts and much more!

What is TechEditor for

As a specialized software, TechEditor can be used for fast and efficient development of:

• explanatory notes to architectural and construction projects
• reports on research, design work
• scientific articles, abstracts
• theses for the degree of Candidate (PhD) of technical, physical and mathematical and other sciences
• articles for scientific blogs, websites
• books, monographs, manuscripts
• student course projects, computational and graphic works, etc.

In TechEditor you can make out the documentation as it used to do in other text editors. All calculations will only be displayed in the document where you want. And the way you want.

In what areas can TechEditor be applied

TechEditor can be used in any field of human activity where the development of technical documentation is required:

• design and calculation of constructions, buildings and structures (AEC, bridges, hydraulic engineering)
  design, architectural design
• design of mechanical engineering products, assessment of the strength of machine parts and mechanisms (automotive, railway transport, aircraft construction, shipbuilding, robotics, etc.)
• development of engineering network projects (power supply, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, water supply, sewerage)
• and much more

Engineering community support

TechEditor is developed and supported by a team of experienced engineers (namely, engineers working in various industries - from civil engineering to mechanical engineering). This is a free software created for the development of engineering and the free flow of scientific thought in the world

You can discuss the program on the forum.

Making technical documents

Traditionally, calculations in technical documents are made in the following sequence:

1. Description of the task
2. Basic calculation formula (formulas)
3. The "where" block, which describes the parameters included in the formula
4. Direct calculation (calculation example)

At the same time, in various design standards, reference books, scientific monographs and other technical literature to shorten the text, the values of the parameters are indicated directly in the "where" block:

CSA O86 "Engineering design in wood"

Such a notation is obvious and understandable to a person, however, computer programs consider an expression to be correct only when all parameters included in the expression are preset (i.e., determined numerically). Therefore, often in computer algebra packages, spreadsheets, programming environments, users set values in front of formulas, in the main part of the document:

This approach does not contradict common sense, but it often becomes a source of duplicates and unnecessarily overloads the report.

TechEditor program is implemented in such a way as to recreate the "book" version of writing technical documentation, while maintaining the computational component. This is achieved by splitting the document into two independent components:

• text part (report)
• calculation part (calculations)

The developer has the ability to show this information anywhere in the report, when he made all the calculations in a separate block of the document. Any parameter in the formula can be shown before, after or within the formula itself — there are no restrictions on the order of information presentation in TechEditor! There is no need for preliminary definition of variables, constants, functions in the report. Thus, the document takes on a strict canonical form (without intermediate, service, secondary insertions).

In the following sections of the Help, you will know how to issue technical documentation in TechEditor and at the same time automate basic settlement operations.

Automation in TechEditor

TechEditor provides the user with the following automation tools:

• scripting engine and application development environment
• math engine
• engine for working with diagrams

Application Development

TechEditor has a built-in scripting engine that allows users to develop their own widgets and small CAD systems. The engine supports several programming languages and allows you to create applications with window interface. End users (engineers, technical workers) do not need to understand the code — they just need to download the required application, run it in the TechEditor environment and use the usual controls (buttons, checkboxes, lists, etc.) to manage the content of the explanatory note or report.

The scripting engine supports various types of data and basic operators for algorithmization and control of the calculation logic. An extensive set of procedures and functions is also built into the program to facilitate programming.

Mathematics in TechEditor

In TechEditor versions up to 1.0, mathematical calculations can be performed only in the script engine, using the programming language.

Starting from version 1.0 TechEditor has a separate tool for mathematical calculations. The engine is in many ways similar to existing computer algebra packages. The engineer has access to simple arithmetic operations, operations for working with vectors and matrices, operations of integration, differentiation and much more.

Charts and diagrams

The charting tool is part of the math engine. It allows you to add algorithmic diagrams, mindmaps, building blocks and other visual structures to the document.