Cantor is a free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 mathematics application

Mathematical software

Mathematical software is software used to model, analyze or calculate numeric, symbolic or geometric data.-Computer algebra systems:Many mathematical suites are computer algebra systems that use symbolic mathematics. They are designed to solve classical algebra equations and problems in human...

 for scientific statistics and analysis. It is part of the KDE Software Compilation 4, and was introduced with the 4.4 release as part of the KDE Education Project

KDE Education Project

The KDE Education Project develops free educational software based on the KDE technologies.- History :The KDE Education project was started in July 2001.- List of software :This software is bundled in the kdeedu package.- Languages :...

's kdeedu package.

Features

Cantor is a graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 that delegates its mathematical operations to one of several back ends. Its plugin-based structure allows adding different backends. It can make use of Sage, Maxima, R

R (programming language)

R is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The R language is widely used among statisticians for developing statistical software, and R is widely used for statistical software development and data analysis....

, GNU Octave

GNU Octave

GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command-line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with MATLAB...

 or KAlgebra.

Cantor provides a consistent interface to these backends; its project page lists the following features:

• Nice Worksheet view for evaluating expressions
• View of plotting results inside the worksheet or in a separate window
• Typesetting of mathematical formulas using LaTeX
• Backend aware syntax highlighting
• Plugin based assistant dialogs for common tasks (like integrating a function or entering a matrix)

Cantor was the first KDE project to implement upload to the GetHotNewStuff addon service, which is used to download or upload example worksheets. It provided impetus for improvement of this feature for KDE SC 4.4.