Hello,
I'm currently investigating using LyX for a professional writing
project. So far I am very happy with it, but I have many questions
about perceived limitations. I'd like to start with a few of my
questions and see if anybody can either 1) help me, or 2) direct me
towards the appropriate documentation so I can figure out the answer
myself. So you can judge my skill level, I didn't know any LATeX before
I started using LyX. The only LATeX I now know is from reading the
'Page Layout in LATeX' document that describes how to use the fancyhdr
package-- I read this so I could create my own headers and footers.
I've created the headers and footers I wanted, but I can't say I really
understand the commands I've used to achieve my results.
I also want to say to the LyX developers: right on! This thing is
great! I read some of the source code and it even looks easy to extend,
so I hope someday I can contribute some useful extensions.
Q1:
I'd like to break my book into seperate files, one for each chapter, and
then use the 'include file' function to string these files together into
the complete book. Unfortunatley, I've encountered a problem with the
cross-reference mechanism. I cannot cross-reference any label located
in a different chapter simply because the 'Insert Cross Reference'
dialog box only lists the labels in the currently loaded file. I see
the 'Name' field and suspect I should be able to enter a label into this
field manually, but it is grayed out and disabled-- I cannot enter
anything into it. So... is this something I can do? If not I'll have
to use one big file-- doable, but not ideal.
Q2:
The sequence of chapters in my book starts, like most books, with
Preface, Forward, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and so forth. Obviously, I
don't want the Preface and Forward to be numbered-- they precede the
first chapter. I thought I could accomplish this by using using the
Chapter* style. This prevents these chapters from being numbered, but
has some unfortunate side effects. First, they do not appear in the
table of contents. Secondly, they don't invoke the \chaptermark
command, so the header for pages in the Preface and Forward says
"Contents". Maybe both of these problems are really the same problem.
Presumably, the table of contents was the last thing to invoke
\chaptermark, so the Preface and Forward headers inherit its name. To
sum up, I do not want the Preface and Forward to have chapter numbers,
but I do want them to appear in the TOC and I want their encompassing
pages to display the appropriate chapter name. Is there some TeX string
I can insert to achieve the behavior I want? Some style I don't know
about that will solve the problem?
Q3:
Is there a way to cause margin notes to be centered on the page they
appear on? Obviously this gets complicated if there is more than one
margin note, but spacing them evenly doesn't seem difficult. The
problem is that some margin notes appear very close to the bottom of the
page they are located on and appear to extend into the footer space. I
think, at least in my own situation, it would look better if the notes
were centered. I have seen books layed out this way-- is there a LATeX
class that will acheive this for me?
Q4:
Recently there was a message regarding a hyphenation problem and the
solution was to install a more recent version of LATeX than what is
distributed with Redhat 6.0. Are there any other bits of software that
LyX depends on that I should upgrade beyond what was on the RH6 CD?
I have other questions but I think I'd better save them for later.
Thanks in advance for any help!
thanks much!
-john.
--
name: John D. Blair
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: 205.821.4322
