(I sent this message last week, and though received no error message it didn't seem to make it to the list (or at least not to the archive). Apologies if it is a duplicate.) _______________
I've had a look at LyX a couple of times over the past few years, and occasionally write an article or paper with it (provided it is something I don't have to share for editing with others in my MS/Word/Wordperfect world of work, which is extremely rare). One thing I have often thought LyX would be ideal for would be for preparing court documents, or other legal documents for that matter, that have a set structure and elements. I particularly think of this when I am working on a factum that has passed through several other lawyer's computers, and has the detruit of all their particular Word formatting quirks munged together. However, though I recognize that, in principle, it should be possible, I haven't managed to figure out how one would go about setting up the necessary templates/layouts/text class/document class (I'm still a bit vague on the distinctions), and I get the feeling that it is probably not a simple task. The problem is that court documents don't seem to fit well with any of the standard text classes in LyX, nor could I find anything particularly on topic on CTAN. Some of the requirements would be additional elements (court file no., parties, counsel, etc.), and other requirements like sequential paragraph numbering through an entire document (including through different "sections" or "parts"), which I couldn't figure out how to do with nesting. The actual placement of the various elements is also generally determined by the court rules in the relevant jurisdiction, though I assume this could be set up easily enough by someone knowledgeable. It seems that court documents are really a specialized enough type of document that they would need their own document class. Moreover, different jurisdictions may have wildly varying layout requirements (though the basic elements will probably be the same). Is anyone aware of any project to prepare legal documents using LyX? B.
