Back in 2017, when the concept of Maple Flow was first proposed at Maplesoft, we developed an aspirational brochure to ignite our creative energy. I still have a printed few copies – here’s one that’s sat behind my monitor.

At that time, the product that did not yet exist was called “Maple Whiteboard” and the brochure described what we had gradually come to appreciate that engineers wanted from a calculation tool:

• simplicity at its beating heart – just learn a few basic game mechanics, and then everything else “flows” (ahem). 
• units support from the get-go
• documentation features to describe the analysis
• connectivity with other software
• engineering-focused math functions

The first working version of Maple Whiteboard was crude…but the basic building blocks were in place and the concept worked. This image dates from 2019.

We unveiled Maple Flow to the public in 2021 (coming up with the name was a trial in of itself). Here’s what it looked like.

The target audience loved the new product—they liked what it could do now and were excited about its future potential. Our initial assumptions had been validated!

Maple Flow has evolved dramatically since the fever dream of the initial brochure and early prototypes. Even though it's much more powerful now, we've made sure it’s still simple to use.

Today, I’m delighted to announce the launch of Maple Flow 2025. This release is a major turning point for the product. You'll see a clean, new interface, faster performance, and more tools for documentation and moving your work from other programs.

Let me touch on my personal highlights.

A new interface headlines the release! It’s clean and simple, with logically ordered buttons in organized groups.

The ribbon is contextual; for example, click on an image, and you’ll see tools for adding shapes and text.

There's always room for improvement and refinement. Let me know what you think!.

You can now insert a table of contents into your document. The page numbers automatically update, and headings are hyperlinked – just click and you jump to that part of the worksheet.

Hyperlinks in the table of contents are preserved when you export the worksheet to PDF – that’s an awesome navigation feature when you distribute your work.

This feature gives me a visual dopamine hit every time I use it. Look how easy it is to use!

We've decided to release a tool we’ve been using internally for some time. The Maple Flow Migration Assistant is a free addon that helps you convert your Mathcad 13, 14 and 15 worksheets to Maple Flow. 

You can convert single Mathcad worksheets or point to a folder for bulk conversion. You also get many function translations.

Automatically converting executable code between two different high-level math tools is difficult; some manual reworking is probably needed for anything that’s not simple arithmetic (we documented what the Migration Assistant does here). But if you’ve already decided to make the switch from Mathcad 13, 14 or 15, then the Migration Assistant is a great time saver.

Large worksheets now evaluate faster! These are benchmarks from our internal testing suite.

You can now run Maple Flow worksheets through Excel via a simple function call. You can change parameters and get updated results.

To help you set up that function call, an interface walks you through the process.

You can use this feature to develop a simple spreadsheet reporting dashboard or perform parameter sweeps on your Flow analyses.

Large analysis projects can be difficult to manage. 

• The results of one worksheet might need to be used in another,
• there may be equations that are reused everywhere, 
• or you might need to split your project into small chunks that different people can work on separately

Well, now we’ve made that whole process easier! You can now treat Flow worksheets as “black box” functions that you can call from other Flow worksheets. You can even change parameter values, and return updated results

The AI Formula Assistant made its debut in Maple 2025 and it sparked a lot of interest (and some interesting conversations about the future of AI in math software). 

By popular demand, we've brought this feature into Flow. You can now look up an engineering formula with a simple natural language query,

That's enough of my personal highlights. If you want to know more, visit the What's New pages for a complete rundown and grab a trial.

If you haven’t tried Maple Flow yet, now is the right time to jump in. We have several time-limited launch offers to make the transition to Flow as frictionless as possible; these include offers for users who are

• deploying a small suite of licenses
• switching from other tools
• in large organizations that need a full implementation plan.

As ever, we can only keep Maple Flow on track if you let me know what you want - send all your feedback my way.

I was wondering whether MapleSoft has opted for an outdated concept. Here is Gemini's answer:

A "better" GUI for Word is subjective, as different users have different needs. The current ribbon interface is great for discovering features, but it can also feel cluttered.

With the former GUI (having a larger quick acess bar) and a tool bar (in red)

only one click was required with substantially less mouse movement.

Personally I would switch to the new GUI with the following improvements

• a quick access bar that is customizable
• a smart ribbon that switches to the edit mode tab when the cursor is placed on editable text or a new text/input/document block is inserted

Having the functions that I use most frequently available in the quick access tool bar (highlighted in yellow) would allow me to minimize the ribbon with the same productivity and even more screen space as before.

Keyboard shortcuts that differ from standard OS shortcuts are not a viable alternative for me.

Overall, the direction with the new ribbon seems to be right to get new users productive faster. It seems to be a good choice without clear alternatives, and its graphical design aligns much better with the core values Maple provides.

However, becoming productive fast does not mean that the productivity is high. From this perspective the former GUI is not outdated yet. The workflow with it is much faster and more focussed on math and code.

Perhaps MapleSoft has solutions that will make the new GUI even more productive than the former GUI. This would be great!