[posted and mailed]

"Rafael Magui�a" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

> The log-file wasn't there. The test.tex file is written, the path is
> also alright - yap looks for the temp dvi file in the right place, but
> then, there is just the tex file, the dvi file is missing. So, i guess
> it is a latex problem, because the *.tex file is not converted to
> *.dvi... I couldn't go farther than that, but then... I'm just a 
> newby at latex/lyx.

Well, that's a bit puzzling (though consistent with what Jim Reid 
reported).  This is a long shot, but try Help-LaTeX Configuration and 
check  "LaTeX version currently in use".  If it does not contain a date 
(and typically this would also mean that the page itself has question 
marks in lieu of a date in its heading), then LyX can't find your LaTeX 
installation.  In that case, you need to make sure that latex.exe is on 
your path, then run Edit->Reconfigure.  I think Jim Reid said that his 
LyX was indicating that LaTeX had been found, though, so I'm not 
optimistic about this.

If you were using a more recent version of Windoze, I might suspect a 
permissions problem (LyX trying to invoke latex.exe but latex.exe 
requiring root permissions, or some such).  I had a problem a while back 
on a Windows 2000 machine that boiled down to a difference between the 
permissions Cygwin assigned to a file and the permissions Windoze 
assigned to it.  However, Win 98 SE isn't particularly anal about 
permissions (in fact, I don't recall being able to assign permissions in 
it), so that's not likely to be the problem.

Another experiment you might try: load a document into LyX; use ctrl-alt-
del to pop up the list of processes running; then click View->DVI and 
watch the process list to see whether latex.exe starts or not.  It might 
be that latex.exe is being invoked but dying without writing a log file.

Or maybe this is something peculiar to the native version, in which case 
someone else will have to come up with the answer.

Meanwhile, you at least have a workaround, albeit a tedious one:

1.  Use File->Export to export your LyX file as a LaTeX file.  This 
should export to the same directory in which the LyX file lives, not to a 
temp directory.

2.  Open a DOS prompt in that directory and run latex <file.tex>.  Since 
you're new to LaTeX, I'll warn you that if you have references in your 
document, you have to run LaTeX at least twice (the first time creates an 
auxiliary file with the references, the second time uses that file to 
fill in reference numbers).  Also, if you put in a bibliography, you'll 
have to run bibtex after the first latex run and before the second one.  
My rule of thumb is to keep running latex until the log output 
stabilizes.  :-)

3.  Now run yap, or whatever your DVI viewer is, on the DVI.

You still get to use LyX to shield you from Evil Red TeX, so this is not 
all bad, but obviously it's not nearly as good as resolving the problem.

> And I'm astonished to having got so much help so
> quick. Thanks!

Benjamin Franklin predates Windows, but nonetheless has a quote relevant 
to Windows users:  "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all 
hang separately."

-- Paul

*************************************************************************
Paul A. Rubin                                  Phone:    (517) 432-3509
Department of Management                       Fax:      (517) 432-1111
The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management    E-mail:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Michigan State University                      http://www.msu.edu/~rubin/
East Lansing, MI  48824-1122  (USA)
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Mathematicians are like Frenchmen:  whenever you say something to them,
they translate it into their own language, and at once it is something
entirely different.                                    J. W. v. GOETHE

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