Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The EdgeForm[None] function is used to ask Graphics to not render the polygon boundaries."

A block of code is set as follows:

SetDirectory[ NotebookDirectory[] ]
shpdat = Import["data/usa_state_shapefile.shp", "Data"]
names = shpdat[[1, 4, 2, 2, 2]];
polys = "Geometry" /. shpdat[[1]]
filenames = Table["data/usgs_state_" <> ToString[i] <> ".csv", {i, 2001, 2010}]

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

SectorChart[{data1, data2, …}, options]

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "The surface will represent the points in 3D space that has the same potential, the potential value of interest being selectable from the drop-down menu named Contour."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.