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CommentsI tried exporting one of the included documents to PDF, figuring an included document would be more likely to be written "correctly" than something I just wrote. Viewing the resulting file I found myself looking at a book with every appearance of having been professionally typeset and ready to go to press.
Impressed, I wanted to try my own hand at formatting. So I imported a book from Project Gutenberg and spent half a minute telling LyX what the parts were. (LyX is limited in the kids of documents it can import. It handles only plain text, LaTeX, and Noweb.) I inserted a table of contents and placed a title and author at the top of the book. Exporting that to PDF I found that I, too, can lay out professional-looking novels.
Despite all the positive points, my first impressions of LyX were not very good. I started typing and got lost quickly. I kept trying to put two spaces after each period, hitting Return for extra white space, and all the things that I'm used to doing with other word processors. Luckily, I then found the online documentation, which was thorough and helpful. After five minutes' worth of tutorial, I went back and started writing and the interface made sense.
LyX's interface is very minimal, showing a small toolbar with a drop-down menu, a few buttons, and a large editing area. The buttons themselves are a bit different than the common assortment of typesetting-centric buttons, since you won't find Justify, Right-Align, Italic, Bold, or any of the other buttons you're used to seeing. Instead, you find Emphasis, Noun Style, Footnote, Margin, and the Math Editor. The editing area is also a bit different than I was used to seeing, consisting of just a more or less generic edit control rather than the large rendered page you get with standard word processors.
I had a pretty easy time installing LyX, since I just installed it from RPM. LyX comes with most major Linux distributions in whatever format they use, so your distribution's package manager should already make it available. If you build it from source, you really need to worry only about having XForms or Qt. If you're not using KDE, you can build with the XForms interface, just making sure XForms is installed.
LyX uses any command-line utility to make the conversion from LaTeX to your target format, so you will need to make sure you have such a utility available. While this appears at first glance a drawback compared to traditional word processors, it is an extension of the Unix philosophy of building small programs that work well. Using the Reconfigure feature, LyX can discover the programs it already understands on its own. If you have already used LaTeX for any serious work then you are already familiar with the additional programs you need for your target formats. If you have never used LaTeX, just relax and install anything that converts LaTeX. LyX's online documentation contains a list of LaTeX packages you should have, and if you want to output to any given target format, you can expect to find the right applications by searching through your package manager for "latex" or your target format. If you have never done anything with LaTeX, spend some time reading through LyX's documentation.
LyX has been around for a while. It was originally written by Matthias Ettrich, KDE's founding father, before he had discovered Qt and started the KDE project. Originally a Motif application, LyX was later ported to XForms. Today, LyX supports XForms and Qt, with a GTK interface in development. LyX is now maintained by Lars Gullik Bjønnes and more than 20 developers worldwide.
LyX's primary benefit is that it takes the work of typesetting completely out of your hands. Since I spend a lot of time writing without knowing what the target format will be, I found LyX to be exactly the right tool at the right time for me. I find that even after I've written something in one format I frequently have to provide the same stuff in other formats, and LyX handles that beautifully.
LyX's primary drawback is that it doesn't interchange documents well with more traditional word processors. Since I generally don't have to worry about interchanging documents, I've been able to switch all of my important writing to LyX. Just as when I switched to Linux, I'm looking back and thinking, "Why did I waste my time with that other stuff?"
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Edit a LaTeX document from a coworker, and return it in completely mangled form.
So for the last week I have been looking at DocBook, which appears to have the right idea in how we would want to go, but it still looks like it might be confusing to users.
I'll definitely look at LyX.
But there is definitely a big market for an application that simplifies typesetting and the creation of documents in multiple formats.
OpenOffice.org has a very powerful notion of styles. If you can get your users to use the style consistently, it can be a life saver. It has any of the benefits as LyX. It creates a constant appearance. You give your document a "logical" description (e.g. author, title, etc).
Take a look at the OpenOffice.org user guide:
http://www.oooauthors.org
We have dozens of volunteers working on the guide, and we maintain a common look by having a standard template.
Furthermore, we can change the appearance fairly easily. We make a new template and apply it to each document. So, the process takes just a few clicks for each file.
LyX is fantastic software, I love it, and I use it. But for "average" users how have the kind of need you describe (e.g. for your company) the best option might be OpenOffice.org WITH TEMPLATES AND STYLES.
Remember: Templates and Styles.
Very important.
Those are what set OpenOffice.org appart from other office suites. That's what sets OOo appart from a glorified typewriter.
Cheers,
Daniel.
OpenOffice.org volunteer.
Yes, that's the same thing as "document classes" in LaTeX/LyX.
In fact, both are implementations of the more general concept of "logical markup" (as opposed to "physical markup", i.e. setting point sizes, typefaces etc. manually).
>It has any of the benefits as LyX.
Except that LyX uses LaTeX as its rendering engine, a professional typesetting system of the highest quality. Especially when it comes to math formulas, nothing I've ever seen comes close to it.
>
>Except that LyX uses LaTeX as its rendering
>engine, a professional typesetting system of the
>highest quality. Especially when it comes to math
>formulas, nothing I've ever seen comes close to
>it.
OOps. I meant to say "many", not "any". Definitely not all. LyX beats the snot out of OOo when it comes to mathematical formulae, for example.
For that matter, OOo beats the snot out of LyX on other areas (e.g. built-in vector graphics engine).
Cheers,
Daniel.
OpenOffice.org volunteer.
Although I'm a LyX/LaTeX user myself, I've found tht there is a nice package for OO called Writer2LaTeX (<A HREF="http://www.hj-gym.dk/~hj/writer2latex/" title="hj-gym.dk">http://www.hj-gym.dk/~hj/writer2latex/</a hj-gym.dk>) which enables one to use OO adn then export to LaTeX to get the best possible output<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)
I spent some time finding how to write Greek in Latex. I found all stuff (with greekISO, with UTF8) , with Omega..
The settings of Lyx were a bit mess in this particular subject, so I ended up using Kile and writing pure LateX
There's also TeXmacs but these guys, seem to support 8 languages [at least seen that from the menu]. Well.. I can be wrong, but still cannot pray to the Lord to find how to write in my native language! (I tried lyx-qt until lyx-gtk is out) and lyx-gtk is out, then I'll try again because I so much like GTK and may have the courage to re-ask in the mailing lists and do the whole searching from scratch
Starting aterm, I searched for klyx (I remember there was such an app years ago), but no such thing here... maybe lyx getting Qt supported deprecated klyx... ?
Anyway, lyx was there. I started it and was greeted with a short (some 10 lines text). Exporting to dvi generated an error. Curiously, it started with a read-only file.
Leaving lyx and re-entering revealed a different splash screen this second time. I then look at the Help| Introduction. It looks very good. I surely will give it a go soon.
An idea that strikes me is using Lyx and Scribus together, as they seem complementary to me.
Does anyone used them both?
PS: BTW, Dave, if you wanted to sell the lyx idea, I think you were overwhelmingly succesful. Thanks.
Like you said they are complementary, I insist. You won't use LyX for a DTP project, Scribus is perfect for a flyer or a project involving heavy graphics, the use of layers, etc.
LyX, on the otherhand, is perfect for a document, a book, a long document with plenty of cross references, hyperlinks, etc.
But you may mix both softwares in a final pdf project, merging the resulting files with pdftk. You then get the best of the two worlds<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)
And don't forget to ajust LyX's preambule so that it contains the hyperref package for clickable hyperlinks in the pdf output.
Raymond
And it produces beautiful, beautiful output. And here's a tip for those of you that need to output to PDF and make it look nice on non-unix platforms, make sure that in your document definition, you choose the pdflatex fonts and that when you export, you also use the pdf-latex filter. You will then be able to produce beatiful documents without much work at all.
Free Software is such a beautiful thing. The developers have my deep appreciation.
Regards,
Gonzalo
after some initial time to work into the system, i was satisfied to see all my word-using fellows struggeling with layout and formatting issues while i was able to concentrate on content<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-) well... more or less *g*
I eventually ended writing the rest of the thesis in Emacs with Auctex after using OS X for a while. Terminal.app didn't support Norwegian characters æ, ø, and å, so Vim was out of the question, and the most popular OS X LaTeX editors were crap. So as a by-product of starting with LyX, i learned both LaTeX and Emacs (I'm a Vim fan by nature, but Emacs is great for TeX). And of course, my thesis looked excellent (and was excellent, I got an A).
http://vim-latex.sourceforge.net/
That brings me to a second advantage of the TeX family. Your old documents can still be processed. Go grab a Word document from the early 90's and see what Office XP does with it. I'd be interested to know.
If you like the Gutenberg etext/LyX combination, then check out Project GutenMark the <A HREF="ftp://ftp.sandroid.org/GutenMark/MarkedTexts" title="sandroid.org">FTP Site</a sandroid.org> for several etexts in LyX format.
There's also a tool for automating the process.
Rick Holbert
It was great!
Me
But you knew that didn't you?
(frigging trolls...)
My main problem with LyX is how difficult is it to use Metapost generated graphics with LyX. I use Metapost a lot, and to use it with LyX and produce both ps and pdf versions of a document is painful (which is funny, because both LyX and Metapost alone are very good at producing identical ps and pdf documents. They approaches to the problem sort of clash with each other).
There is another program whose philosophy reminds me of LyX. It's the graphics editor IPE (http://ipe.compgeom.org/) I would recommend every person who likes LyX and has to create technical graphics to look at it. If you do, don't forget to try all the snapping modes.
If you want a GUI, then use OpenOffice. It's a pity it can't export to LaTeX, but I have to admit I've never needed it to.
So who needs LyX? Beats me. The whole point of a GUI is that you get direct control over layout, assuming that that's what you want. LyX doesn't give you that, so what's the point of a GUI? It panders to the unthinking prejudice that a GUI is always "better", "more user-friendly". But in this case, it isn't, because it creates the wrong expectations in the user.
Really? I can't speak for others, but I usually don't care about "direct control over layout". Rather the opposite: I want to "just type" while LyX takes care of the layout without me having to bother.
>use LaTeX. And an ordinary text editor like emacs. If your doc has a lot of math, this is definitely the best way to go.
Did you know that in LyX, you can just type LaTeX math commands into a math box (e.g. \int, \sqrt, \frac...), and symbols appear as you type?
(To be exact, in order to see the symbol you must either start the next one or hit space, so that LyX knows that the command is finished.)
And why is that better than<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... just typing them?
>>Did you know that in LyX, you can just type LaTeX math commands into a math box
>And why is that better than<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... just typing them?
Maybe, you can see what you have typed and if there is e typo you immediately know? Or, maybe, you don't need to worry about matching curly brackets?
The point of a GUI is typically for usability. In this instance, it takes away the cognitive drain of a feature-rich system like Latex. You have menus and icons that do things, and the user can recognise their functions. This is opposed to simply using a text editor , where by the user has to recall all the necessary commands.
Lyx isn't a WYSIWYG editor, so even if you changed page properties, it wouldn't be reflected on screen - only when you exported it as a document in your chosen format (PS, PDF, etc)
Of course, whether it's user-friendly will probably depend on the user. I use Lyx every now and again. I tend to use good ol' vim for writing Latex files. But I think Lyx is rather good.
Latex and therefore Lyx are better for certain types of documents, articles, reports, thesese, books. Normally large docuements that are heavily structured. Lyx should help to provide a means for people who want to write such documents, who are tired with word processors, and want to try things the Latex way, but without Latex experience.
Far to many conferences, jounals, and colleagues in my field want MSWord as a file format. Worse, they want APA citation style which requires special processing and layout tags not understood by any of the LaTeX to RTF formatters. After spending a few weeks trying to get various converters to work, (and then a few more weeks converting by hand) I just gave up on it.
I just saw that <A HREF="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/mn.html" title="ohio-state.edu">Tex4ht </a ohio-state.edu> has a oo.org converter which might be worth trying if I can dig up my old stuff.
The response I give to people like that is, "I don't use Microsoft Word". If they can't take documents in some well-defined, standard format, they're not doing their job properly. OK, you will lose a few contacts, but not many, and none that are irreplaceable.
Good luck with your contacts!
LyX is a gateway drug
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 23, 2004 02:30 AMgreat software!!
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