Version 1.6 of “Document Processor” LyX is Released
Scott from Ubuntu Musings reported on the recent release of LyX 1.6. If you’re into LaTeX and pristinely formatted documents done with a minimum of hassle, you’ll want to check the latest version of LyX out.
The idea behind the LyX is that you give area of your document “styles” and let the the program handle all the formatting for you. This is great for long documents like books, screenplays, and the like. When I tried it about a year ago, the learning curve was steep, so I stuck with OOo once I figured out to use its own style features. Now, I’m still pretty happy with my OpenOffice.org, but many people do swear by LyX.
I’m curious; do any of you Linux and productivity people out there use LyX to enhance your productivity when working on long documents, or do you generally just stick with OpenOffice.org?
Although I’m not particularly familiar with LyX, I believe it’s actually a frontend/editor for the TeX/LaTeX markup format. I use it regularly for math/programming-based homework, and it’s also great for academic papers as well.
One of its biggest advantages is that you have precise control over layout and styling. And your paper is guaranteed to be formatted the same from any machine. (Compared to MS Word / OpenOffice, which sometimes has unusual formatting incompatibilities.)
It also has great support for typing in complicated math equations, which was the biggest draw for me.
It does have a high learning curve, and probably not right for a lot of people. But in the unique situations that it’s needed, LaTeX can be a great tool.
Vim + vimoutliner are awesome — more of my drafts are now in .txt and .otl format
I don’t use LyX, but I do use LaTex. I use Kile, a slightly different sort of front-end, to help me with all of the markup. Can’t say much about the learning curve: I learned LaTeX in a plain text editor, typing in all the markup manually. I wouldn’t recommend it - if you want to learn, use Kile or TexMaker. (I don’t know Lyx at all - perhaps I’ll have to have another look at it.)
How does OOo do with automatic numbering and cross-referencing of sections and figures across multiple chapters (ie, multiple files)?
@Scott: I would love to to give LyX a try on a research paper sometime, and see if I can’t automate a lot of that formatting work!
@Kyle: I’ve used vimoutliner before as well…it’s a great lightweight option…plus I just like vim.
@Mills: I was aware of Kile, but I think I’ll give it a closer look now. I’ve never had the occasion to work with cross-referencing multiple files in OOo, I so I’d be interested to find out how it works as well.