Telling the software which transformation to use
The Transformation menu is used when you want to direct the software to perform a particular kind of transformation. Many students, after using the software for a while, progress from simply clicking on solve buttons to this stage, which requires a bit more independence.
For example, in a problem such as
you might want to combine like terms in the numerator.
First select the appropriate sub-expression (in this case that would be 2a+a) and then click on Transformation | Expression | Combine | Terms.
The desired transformation will be performed:
Now you can perform the same operation in the denominator, and finally instruct the software to reduce the fraction, via Transformation | Expression | Fraction | Reduce.
Note that it is very important to pre-select the sub-expression on which the transformation is to be performed. If you don’t, the software will assume that the desired step needs to be performed on the entire expression. This may or may not result in a valid request: for example, in the case above collect-like-terms step would not be appropriate for a fraction and the transformation request would fail.
It should be possible to solve the majority of problems via the Transformation menu (where the user defines what step is to be performed next). In rare instances where this is not possible, you will need to solve the problem using standard solve buttons.
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