On Monday 13 September 2010 12:18:58 Etienne Snyman wrote: > Dear LyX-peoples... > > I have a few questions concerning layout, typesetting and fonts. > (I am using LyX 1.6.5 on Ubuntu 10.04) > > I am in the planning stage of writing a music theory textbook (which > will be Creative-Commons licensed!) and I am therefore using the "book" > class in the Document Setting dialogue. It is easy for me to choose > Helvetica and Utopia for my Sans Serif and Roman fonts, respectively, > and I am more than happy with my choice. > > However, I would like to tweak a lot of these settings so that my > headings are in the Sans font, and my content in the Roman font. Using > the KOMA-script book class is not an option. > > I have been going through the Wiki and the built-in "Customization" > documentation, but I have no skill in writing *.layout files. I have > tried, but I cannot seem to do what I want to do. > > This also affects the page headers, which I want to look a certain way. > Because LyX is based on LaTeX, I know that various layouts can be set. > > Is there someone who can direct me in the right way to learn how to > change my settings the way I want them? I would really like to learn how > to tweak these settings in a few hours rather than weeks learning > complex LaTeX code. > > Thanks! > > Etienne
Hi Etienne, I feel your pain. The changes you describe would be so simple in WordPerfect and MS Word, and soooo difficult in LyX. And you'll find out that a lot of people ask "well why don't you just use the defaults, why do you want to micromanage your document's appearance?" You've identified the main deficiency in LyX -- everything else about it is wonderful. You mention you have no skill in writing layout files. Most folks don't. It's gruelling, difficult work, and I'd estimate that getting all your styles the way you want them will take you between 3 and 5 days of work -- a long time but not so long compared to the time it takes to write a book, and don't forget LyX saves you writing time in a hundred different ways. I was in your exact position in 2001 (actually, I kind of still am), so I wrote several documents about making your own layouts and learning LaTeX for the purpose of layouts. Here's the set of links for my LyX documentations and tutorials: http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/index.htm I'll give you one more word of wisdom. It gets better. As time goes on you learn the in's and out's of making environments and character styles, and you learn how to quickly make dummy environments to get on with your writing, and later on go back and make your styles exactly how you want them. HTH SteveT Steve Litt Recession Relief Package http://www.recession-relief.US Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt
