Looking for a good math graphing tool

[Iman74]

A fellow student has helped me quite a bit and I want to return the favor. At UOP for our Math course we spend much of our time using the Math Equation Editor within Excel. Anyone who has used it knows it's not the quickest nor the easiest tool; but after using it for awhile you kind of get used to it. However, the one thing we all hate is the graphing tool. So while using that I mentally came up with a primary graphing tool which I later learned does exist. Part of our course is to go to www.aleks.com and take practice problems etc. Many times we are expected to graph; in graphing using Aleks we get to use the tools I imagned. These tools are:
Electronic ruler
Point Plotter
Typical click, drag, and drop type tools. While Excel has us enter the points, but to get the lines extended we need to determine more points. With Aleks we can plot the two sets of points then using an electronic ruler we can make a straight (or dotted) line from one end to the other past the points.

Has anyone used such a tool on their computer that we can buy or download and use? Also, be able to copy and paste those graphs made into Word.

[james8547]

I used Matlab when I was learning Calculus, Linear Algebra, and even Discrete Math. It has a decent 3d graphing. You can use the printscreen function to copy and paste it to Word. However, I am not sure how you can get it.

[Iman74]

Thanks for the tip. I was poking around and it appears if I found the product you are discussing, to use Matlab you are to use it like a program language: using commands and such. Is this correct?

I was hoping to find something that is more GUI; less commands and more point and click. But that matlab appears if known well, can be a very useful tool.

Thanks again.

[james8547]

Yes, Matlab is similar to DOS. It doesn't have much of a GUI. I'm not sure about the newer versions since it's been a while since I actually used it. You have to use inline commands.

But, the graph capabilities of this software is very decent. I can't compare it to anything since this was the only PC graph tool I ever used. I rarely make excel graphs.