Once a Maple session is initiated, there are several ways to obtain information from within Maple. First, there are several commands under the Help menu on the title bar that give help of various kinds. The help browser is a separate window that displays a tree-like hierarchy of all the Maple help documentation. By exploring the help browser, we can quickly get an overview of many Maple packages and commands.
To obtain help about a particular command, enter a ``?'' followed by the name of the command. If the precise name is unknown, Maple may suggest commands whose name is close to a good guess of a command name. For example, the following input is an attempt to find an Integration command. Maple suggests instead int and Int which are its commands for definite and indefinite integration.
> ?integrate
FUNCTION: int or Int - Definite and Indefinite Integration CALLING SEQUENCES: int(f, x) Int(f, x) int(f, x=a..b, ...) Int(f, x=a..b, ...) ......
One extremely useful feature of Maple help pages for commands is that many examples of actual commands appear at the end of the help page. These can be cut-and-pasted into the main Maple window for execution and modification. This saves a great deal of time in learning the details of the syntax of particular commands.
A tutorial or new user's tour is included within Maple. The tutorial can usually be accessed from the menus. This is an interactive tutorial (the user must solve problems), and the hour or two spent following this tutorial is invaluable. This author cannot recommend its value highly enough. After completing the tutorial, the general user will be fairly comfortable with Maple.