LyX as a complement to Latex
--- Fred Smith <fps@dividedsky.net> wrote:
> I've been attempting to move from openoffice to latex for some of the
> documents I write because I really like the way that latex prints and
> formats documents. I've been playing around with LyX as a latex
> editor,
First, you may want to send LyX questions to the LyX lists. Your
chances of getting a useful reply are much better, since you are likely
to get replies by people who actually USE LyX. Visit www.lyx.org and
you'll find plenty of info, including the how to get to the lists.
As has been pointed out by others, LyX is NOT a LaTeX editor...it is
MUCH MORE. It enables you to produce latex documents without learning
latex, UNLESS YOU WANT. BUt you can always EXPORT to latex, and make
whichever changes you see fit, and then process your document thru
latex, as if you had written the whole thing. In ther words, you LOSE
NOTHING interms of capabilities, because whatever thing you couldn't
get done thru LyX, you can add by hand.
But the real advantage of lyx is that allows you to see most of your
math and other complicated expressions "in real time" as you type
them. This is an enormous advantage, if you want to compose your
documents directly on the computer.
Before deciding to type latex directly, find a complicated latex
document that someone else may have written, and try to read it and
make sense of it...look at something complicated like, say, a big
matrix FULL of complicated math INSIDE THE MATRIX...se how it looks
like, and ask yourself, not only how easy it would for you to learn to
typeset such things, but also how easy it would be for you to
understand and edit your own documents after you have typed it.
Yes, doing "easy things" with latex is easy...but if all you need to do
is "easy things" maybe you don't even need latex.
> but i can't get it to export to ps or pdf without chaining through
> "latex" and "dvipdf", even though according to lyx's documentation
> I'm
> supposed to be able to export directly to ps and pdf from the file
> menu.
> In addition, the latex documents that lyx produces don't always parse
> properly when i pipe them through latex, specifically whenever I
> embed
> graphics. Am I missing a package that lets me export to pdf from
> within lyx? Alternately, is there a better latex editor that will go
> straight to a latex formatted pdf or ps file?
You are almost certainly missing several things...but the most
important one is having a general understanding of what lyx is, and
what it does.
Again, try www.lyx.org. The lyx documentation is quite good...you'll
find the tutorial quite helpful.
__Virgil
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