I may be reiterating points here, but: I wrote my Master's Thesis (75 pages) in LaTeX, in preference over Xywrite (think of it as a DOS-based, pre-Word Word) at the insistence of my thesis advisor -- thank you Dr. Enge!
Then I spent the next fifteen years wishing I could be using LaTeX instead of Word for long documents. In a word, Word (and, for that matter, OpenOffice) sucks at big documents. As soon as you find yourself writing chapters and trying to put them together into books, things just bog down or crash altogether. Later revisions (of both Word and OpenOffice) are better, but Word and its ilk are still, at base, tools for administrative staff who are not yet clear on the concept that painting "white out" on the screen doesn't make the problem go away in the document. It's best to remember at all times that Lyx is just a thin overlay over a LaTeX document, and that LaTeX is not a WYSIWYG environment -- it's a WYMIWYG (what you mean is what you get) environment. You'll do best with LyX if you have a LaTeX manual sitting at your elbow at all times, so that you don't try to do things that "just don't fit". So -- the equation writing environment can't be beat, the tool handles large documents seamlessly, and the graphics handling are no worse and in many ways better than WYSIWYG word processors, and the whole shebang is designed specifically for writing technical documents. What more could you want? As far as work load goes, I think that by the end of the first ten pages you'll be going as fast as you would have been in Word. By the end of the first twenty pages you will have caught up with what you would have done in Word (and that's without factoring in a crash or two). By the end of the document, you'll be very happy that you chose Lyx. On Mon, 2011-10-17 at 09:49 -0700, Johnston81 wrote: > To the ones that can and will help, > > I apologize if this has already been covered in another topic; I have > searched but been unable to find any such. If, however, you know of such > topics, if you could please point me in the right direction? > > My current situation is this: I am working on my Master Thesis and currently > doing my research and such. As it is now, I am uncertain how large my final > project will be - I imagine that the final document will probably exceed 100 > pages, but where I am uncertain of size I am certain that the document will > contain considerable amounts of graphs and tables - rather more than I am > comfortable working with in Word 2010. > > My questions are fairly simple to ask, I am not certain that everybody will > agree on the answers but rough estimates are all I am looking for anyway. So > here goes: > > 1. Considering LyX over Word, how much time would I approximately need to > learn LyX to the extent that I can actually produce text, including graphics > and formulas(!), from a template? > 2. What can I reasonably expect my learning curve to be after having learned > the bare basics; what I mean is, is it simple to teach LyX to oneself and > how easy is it to solve problems when encountered? > 3. And finally, being a skilled user of Word would I - ultimately - save or > spend time if I did try my luck on LyX? > > I have many more similar questions, but for now this will have to do - I > shouldn't take to much of your time! But if you have any other advice or > experiences that relate to my post, that you feel could help me or others > that are doing the same kind of contemplations, please do not hesitate and > do share! > > Thank you very much for time. I look forward to read your replies! > > Johnston81 > > -- > View this message in context: > http://lyx.475766.n2.nabble.com/Engineering-student-considering-LyX-for-Thesis-tp6901371p6901371.html > Sent from the LyX - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- Tim Wescott www.wescottdesign.com Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
