On 08/16/2009 02:15 PM, KR Thorne wrote:
Hello,
I am new to LyX, coming from 20+ yrs in a Windows/Word/OpenOffice Writer environment, and I am trying to figure out how to format headers and footers without having to take extensive courses in LaTeX programming code.
The headers need to be smaller and not slanted, with page numbers, and there needs to be more space between the text and the page number in the footer.
This is for use in self-published novels, which should not have SLANTED ALL CAPS since they look weird in a novel environment. I have obtained instructions on how to use {myheadings} and that works okay, to a point. But I'm still getting slanted text which is too large, and on the first page of each chapter the footer page number is way too close to the text (looks like a single return beneath the body of text).
I have searched for days now but cannot find any user-friendly instructions on how to remedy this situation---I do not speak HTML, LaTeX, TeX, or any similar coding language. I just need nice unobtrusive headers and footers for my novels.
If you could please assist me, I would be most grateful. Additional specifics are below.
I'm afraid we will have to get our hands dirty with LaTeX here. The good
news is that, once this has been done once, it has been done, and you
can re-use the code.
The first thing I'd suggest is that you look at some of the other book
styles, especially at "book (koma-script)". Different book classes have
different designs for headings, page layout, and the like, and one of
them may appeal more. (That's very much the idea with LyX/LaTeX: This
kind of thing is done by the document class.) The koma-script classes
make customization of lots of things very easy. In your case, you would
want to look at section 3.2.2 of the koma-script manual, which is
available here:
http://www.ctan.org/get/macros/latex/contrib/koma-script/scrguien.pdf
and which describes the commands available for customizing headers. You
could probably start by just using the example there to customize the
fonts and such. The sorts of commands you would want to use are pretty
simple and are described here:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/latex/ltx-176.html. (EVERYONE should keep
a bookmark to this site!)
The koma-script bundle also includes a package discussed in chapter 2 of
the manual for doing all kinds of things with general page layout. This
is a bit more complicated, because page layout is complicated.
The other book class some people really like is memoir, the docs for
which are here:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/memoir/memman.pdf
It also provides massive customization abilities. I do not know it well
myself, though.
Finally, if you want to stick with the basic book class, you can use the
fancyhdr package to customize your headers and footers, and LyX's
built-in support for the geometry package (Document>Settings>Margins) to
deal with the other issue you mentioned. (I think increasing footskip
may solve your problem.) The docs for fancyhdr are here:
http://www.ctan.org/get/macros/latex/contrib/fancyhdr/fancyhdr.pdf
and, again, the kinds of commands you are likely to need will be very
simple. There's actually discussion, in chapter 8 of that manual, about
how to change the headings and such for the usual book class.
Feel free to keep asking....
Richard
