On Fri, 29 Nov 2013 12:46:23 +0000 (UTC) Ben <mike1...@icloud.com> wrote:
> Hello, > I use Lyx to write novels and factual books (some of which contain > photos). I have a query regarding the use of child documents and a > master document. > > What characteristics of the master document are given to a child > document associated with it? Hi Ben, Lots of people have given you good answers to your exact question, so I'm giving some info not responsive to your question, but something which you might (or might not) find helpful. I regularly write 100K word books with several images, and I author them as a single file, not master/children. My 5 year old, 4GB RAM "Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7200 @ 2.53GHz" computer has absolutely no problem handling such books as one file, either while editing or while compiling. I just tested compile on this computer, for my "Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist", over 100K words with several images, and it compiled and displayed in the Evince PDF viewer in 26 seconds, which I find perfectly practical for my authoring duties. I've been on the LyX-Users list for 12 years now, and the whole time I've seen regular questions about why some aspect of master/child didn't work. I even tried it once back around 2002, and it failed in several ways I didn't feel like troubleshooting, because even with the computers back then, LyX handled "Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist" quickly and well. Obviously, if you're splitting the book up between several authors, you have to master/child it. And if the book were 500K words with commensurate graphics and you weren't running on a 3+Ghz 4 core with 16GB of RAM, you might have to master/child it. But LyX is amazingly efficient with big documents, and, speaking for myself, I've found it easier to edit the whole book as one file. Of course, YMMV. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
