Excel is widely used for calculations in engineering, and there are good reasons for that.
It's simple to get started.
It's intuitive to use.
There's a lot under the hood when you need it.
Even with these advantages, it's drawbacks for engineering are well known and widely discussed.
You've almost certainly experienced them for yourself!
Blockpad captures everything great about Excel while bringing capabilities essential for quality engineering work.
The tools engineers need
Formulas visible in math notation
Blockpad is a spreadsheet at heart, and all of the math in Blockpad is written in spreadsheet style formulas.
Unlike conventional spreadsheets, these formulas are
displayed in math notation
so you can understand the calculations much more easily.
Name values in the formula
Named values are at the core of readable calculations, and if you make that hard to do, it's less likely to get done.
Because of that, we made it possible to name values
right there where you type in the math, just like you would write it down on paper.
Units intelligence
Engineers work with all kinds of units of measure, and there's no reason your calculation software can't help you with managing them.
In Blockpad, units intelligence takes care of conversion factors for you,
encourages good unit "book keeping", and helps to catch errors in unit consistency.
With these options, there are more opportunities to actually write down the why of what's being calculated.
There's also the free documentation you get with using named values and units intelligence.
A spreadsheet at heart
To capture the magic of spreadsheets, Blockpad is essentially a spreadsheet under the hood.
Dynamic, updating documents
When you make a change to a formula in Blockpad, that change propagate throughout the document automatically, just like in spreadsheets.
Calculations as formulas
Blockpad math is done by typing out spreadsheet-style formulas, with regular math operators and all of the same
math functions you'd find in Excel like Sqrt() or Sin().
When you're working on a formula, you can click on other values in the document to add them to that formula, just like clicking on a cell in spreadsheets.
Named values and dropdown selections make this feature less necessary, but it's still great to have.
Actual spreadsheets and tables
Blockpad includes spreadsheets and
tables (mini-spreadsheets) built in to the software natively.
That means you can have all of the benefits of a spreadsheet-style cell and grid layout and all of the benefits of Blockpad formulas,
like units intelligence.
Important spreadsheet tools
It's not just the feel of a spreadsheet.
Blockpad also includes important tools for engineering that you find in Excel.
Lookup functions
Lookup functions are a great way to actually get the information from tables that you use in equations.
Conditional formatting
Blockpad has conditional formatting for both spreadsheet cells and regular equations so you can mark values that stand out or don't meet requirements.
Dropdown lists
Dropdown lists allow you to make a controlled list of options for inputs.
They are a great tool for making re-usable calculation templates in Excel, and they're great in Blockpad too.
Value formatting
In Blockpad you can set value formatting like the number of decimals that appear behind a decimal.
There are also settings you won't see in conventional spreadsheets, like number of significant figures shown and engineering notation.
You can leave comments on both equations and cells.
They won't show up when you print the document, and you don't see them unless you click on them.
Advanced features for engineering
Straightforward custom functions
Blockpad makes it easy to create custom functions for calculations you repeat a lot.
You can create and name the function in a regular equation, and then use it anywhere in the file.
Dynamic hidden sections
In Blockpad, you can create sections around groups of equations and text,
and then make those sections shown or hidden based on values in the document.
This is an very versatile part of the program, useful for various things like showing only inputs and results or dynamically showing different images.
In addition to regular lookup functions, Blockpad has VlookupInterpolate() and Interpolate2D(), which are essentially
lookup functions that can interpolate between values.
Solver sections
Blockpad solver section solve systems of equations and update the results live with the rest of the formulas.
There aren't any extra steps required, like running goal seek in Excel.
This way, when an input changes, you know that the output already incorporates the updated solver result.
In-line programming
With Blockpad's in-line programming,
you can run small scripts inside of the document without starting up another environment or learning entirely new syntax.
Worth it to make the change
It's challenging to change the software you're using for calculations.
Not only are there a lot of new things to learn, but it takes time to re-create all of your templates and calcs.
After you take that initial plunge though, you will quickly start seeing all of the benefits from using calculation software actually built for engineering.
Less time writing calcs
Because you can use regular names easily and actually see what you're doing, it's easier to understand the calcs you're writing,
so it takes less time.
Units intelligence helps makes things move faster too, while adding to quality, not sacrificing it.
Catch mistakes as you work
It's a fact of life that mistakes happen.
Blockpad helps you catch mistakes as you make them, instead of scratching your head over things hours later.
More confidence in reusing calculations
Since you can view and understand the math in Blockpad,
you can be more confident in re-using that old file or some calcs from a team member.
Better looking reports
Blockpad enables you to easily create pages long structural reports with professional formatting.
Try Blockpad today
Start a free desktop trial or get started with the web app.
Blockpad offers all of the important parts of Mathcad for engineering, plus more features that are built for practical engineering work.
Whether you're a long time Mathcad user exploring other options or you're checking it out for the first time because you find it's features attractive,
read on to learn about what Blockpad can do.
The important parts of Mathcad
Mathcad has a core set of tools that make it work well for engineering.
Blockpad has all of those tools too.
Auto-updating math
Just like Mathcad (and spreadsheets for that matter), changes in Blockpad automatically propagate throughout the whole document.
We take it for granted, but it's an important point.
Named values
Equations in Blockpad can be easily named at the point they are defined, then those names can be used in further equations.
This part of the program is basic, but crucial.
Easily naming values makes readable equations possible, and readable equations are at the core of creating clear, understandable calculations.
Math notation
Blockpad equations are written a lot like Excel formulas, but when those formulas are used in the document, they are shown in readable math notation.
With equations in math notation, they are much more readable to human eyes, so you can catch errors much more easily.
There's also a visual editor
to make editing these equations is easy too.
Units intelligence
Manually taking care of unit conversions in every calculation is burdensome and mistake prone, so it makes sense that this is a popular Mathcad feature.
That's why units intelligence is available in Blockpad too,
so you can let the computer handle all of the minutia of conversion factors while you focus on the bigger picture.
Units intelligence has further benefits too - it encourages good unit book keeping by default and it helps to catch other errors in an equation, like forgetting to square a value.
Math
Blockpad includes all of the math capabilities that you need for engineering tasks at a practical level.
That is to say, it has the same capabilities as conventional spreadsheets like Excel, with some extra capabilities around solvers, arrays, custom functions, and matrices.
To be fully transparent, Blockpad does not include some higher level math like partial differential equations or Fourier transforms,
so if that is important for your work, Mathcad might still be the better bet.
Word processing
Blockpad's primary environment, "Reports",
is essentially a word processor, with a secondary option to have a notebook-like interface.
Blockpad has all of the same text editing that Mathcad does in these reports, and most people find it even more natural for writing, since it's like other familiar writing tools.
More feature parity
Besides the core features, Blockpad also includes a lot of other things found in Mathcad that help make your documents even better.
Blockpad also features a lot of capabilities that you can't find in Mathcad.
These features were built around practical needs for engineers creating calc documents.
Show steps
Blockpad includes a "Show Steps" option for equations that shows the equation with the actual number values plugged in.
This is great for illustrating what math the program is doing and making the calculations more reviewable.
Native spreadsheets and tables
Spreadsheets provide an intuitive and robust method for handling data at the scale required for engineering calculations.
That's why at Blockpad we built fully functional spreadsheets
and tables (mini-spreadsheets) directly into the program.
The tables in Blockpad are not an integration with a separate program, they are just as much part of Blockpad as the equations.
Because of this, features like units intelligence are possible in spreadsheets too.
Also, with tables in the document, you can use the values in the tables for equations in the document, and vice versa.
This works great for things like lookup values.
When you use headings in a Blockpad file,
you can create an automatically generated table of contents based on those headings and where they are in the file.
This table of contents works as hyperlinks
to those parts in the document too, and you can also style the table of contents to match the rest of your file.
Comments
Blockpad has spreadsheet-style comments that appear when you click on them,
but don't show when you print the document.
Frames and sections to organize documents
Calculation documents can get long with many different kinds of calculations and with repeated versions of the same calculation.
Blockpad has tools to manage this length and complexity by giving you different containers to put the parts of a calculation in.
Frames
A lot like sheets in conventional spreadsheets, Blockpad has frames that are all located in the same file,
but unlike spreadsheets, these frames can be more than just one thing.
They can be
reports (the word processor environment),
actual spreadsheets,
drawings, or
notebooks.
With frames, you can put fundamentally different parts of your calculation file in different frames to organize them better,
but these different frames can still interact with each other in equations.
For example, you could create a meta-information report frame that contains all of the general information on a project,
and this information is kept in a different place in the file than the main calculations.
You can also keep entire spreadsheets of data in a file and reference them in the main calculations as needed.
Sections
Sections are like wrappers that you can put around groups of equations.
This keeps them together and somewhat separated from everything else.
You can reference equations in a section from outside of that section using the section name.
This enables you to repeat the same calculation multiple times with the same name,
but still have all of those values accessible from anywhere in the document.
Blocks - custom calculation modules in the doc
Engineering often has a lot of repeated calculations.
To make these more consistent and useable in a document, Blockpad has blocks,
which are essentially custom calculation modules that you can use inside of a document.
When you make a block definition, you set what inputs are changeable when you use those blocks later.
And once you've made a block definition, you can re-use it as a block inside of files again and again as needed.
Once in the doc, you can reference other values in the file to define the inputs for a block, and then you can reference the outputs from the block in equations in the doc too.
This enables linking from all of your equations to your calculation modules, and vice versa, so you can have one cohesive document.
Easier for Excel users to get started
A lot of Excel users like the idea of Mathcad, but they don't ever make the switch for any number of reasons.
Blockpad makes it easier for them to make that switch.
There's a lot that's familiar in Blockpad - click-to-reference values,
equations as formulas, and of course, having actual spreadsheets available.
Because of this, Excel users find using Blockpad more familiar than Mathcad so they can get started more quickly.
More affordable
At Blockpad, our goal is to make high-quality tools available to engineers throughout the world.
Part of that mission is keeping our pricing reasonable so that more engineers can have access.
At the time of writing this, Mathcad is over 4x the cost of Blockpad for groups - check out our pricing page and see how things compare.
The engineering software of the future
Blockpad is built for engineers by engineers,
and we're excited to make better and better tools for engineers doing real work throughout the world.
Using Word for Calc Reports? Try Blockpad instead!
With Blockpad, you can have your calculations and your report in one place.
No more digging through a 30 page report manually changing every last value just because one load changed in the project.
Real math, real word processor
Blockpad is not just a dainty calculator inside Word, and it's not just math software with some simple text boxes.
It's a real calculation tool and a real word processor!
All of the calculation tools you need
Blockpad is first and foremost calculation software.
That's what it is built for!
Since it's not a secondary add-on to an existing word processor tool, it has all of the calculation tools you need for engineering work at a practical level.
Also, since the calculations are very similar to Excel, it's really easy to get started.
A spreadsheet under the hood
Blockpad works a lot like a spreadsheet.
You press the equals sign for an equation, you type in a formula, you can reference other values in the file,
and you can use standard spreadsheet functions like Sqrt(), Max(), or Vlookup().
Built for engineering
Importantly, Blockpad also includes functionality that has engineers at top of mind, like easily named values, units intelligence,
and math in readable equations.
Once you've typed the formula in, it appears in math notation by default.
No more wrestling with an equation editor.
Typing in Blockpad actually works like normal word processors.
As you type onto the page, the text goes in line-by-line and will shift everything below it down.
Paragraphs and formatting
Like in conventional word processors, the text is made up of paragraphs,
and you can adjust the properties of those paragraphs to control how they appear, including line height, spacing before and after, indents, and alignment.
You can also set tab stops for each line,
which become especially useful for placing equations consistently in the text.
Of course, there are also standard text properties you can control like font, text color, highlight, bold, etc.
You can also set page properties like margins and page size.
Headings, style rules, and table of contents
You can set certain paragraphs to be headings at different levels.
This is not just a quick way to make the text bigger, it gives you the power to make the most of other tools in Blockpad.
With style rules,
you can set "default" formats to all of the different kinds of objects.
Since the different heading levels are treated as different objects, you can set all the headings in a doc to look a specific way by default.
If you have headings in your document, you can use Blockpad to automatically generate a table of contents,
complete with links and page numbers.
Calculation-based formatting tools
Since Blockpad includes live calculations, there are formatting tools possible that you can't find in conventional word processors.
With the Show steps feature in Blockpad,
you can show a calculation with it's values plugged in.
You can also control what other parts of the calculation are shown - the name, the formula, and the result - in any combination.
This gives you more control over how the final document appears.
Conditional formatting
Since Blockpad is essentially a spreadsheet under the hood, it's possible to have features like conditional formatting,
so that your equations can be displayed differently depending on their result.
Synergy
It might be the word we love to hate, but the synergy in Blockpad is real.
Having your calculation and report tool in one place makes things better besides not switching back and forth between tools.
Natural documentation
Using names and units for your calculations makes the calculations easier to create and easier to read.
It also makes your report itself easier to read.
Having the named values and units shown alongside other documentation makes everything clearer with less effort.
Dynamic tools
Calculations and reports in the same place make the tools mentioned above possible, and those tools make a lot more automation possible.
You can make your report automatically say different things depending on how the calculations come out.
You don't have to go in and re-write everything each time the numbers change.
You can also highlight important outputs if they are out of range - all pre-made inside of your report.
Calculation modules
The Blockpad block system allows you to create your own calculation modules, then use those modules inside of a different report.
These "blocks" can reference other values in the report for their inputs, and then you can use their outputs for further equations.
Besides the calculations they can do, the blocks also show all of the math and text that you include in the original calculation module,
along with any of the dynamic features you build in.
So, when you add these blocks to a report, you're also adding the equation visualization, all of the documentation, and any drawings or images.
Give Blockpad a try
It's pretty simple to get started.
You can go to our website and download a two week free trial to get a feel for things.
Also take a look at our support page and YouTube videos, including the video on getting started with Blockpad.
