Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Eric Weir]

When I attempt to publish [format and print to pdf] a document compiled from 
Scrivener and imported into LyX I get a long list of errors, all of which have 
to do with Lyx--or the document class I'm using, KOMA-Script article--not 
liking some of the punctuation carried over from Scrivener. 

The major offender is--I'm going to describe, because I don't know the name--a 
long dash which Scrivener converts to when I enter two regular dashes in 
succession. Single dashes and some single and double quotation marks also give 
errors. [The error with the long dash--again, forgive my not knowing the name 
of the thing--may be due to the fact that I believe it is normally preceded and 
followed by a space; I recently switched to use of long dashes that without the 
preceding and following spaces.]

This is the message I get regarding the long dash:

We believe this impasse—
between a rigorous method that is difficult

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.

My first thought was to go back to Scrivener and change the offending 
characters--adding spaces before and after double dashes--but that might be 
unnecessarily laborious, and will not work for the offending single dashes and 
single and double quotes. Here is an error message related to single quotes:

Cartwright, N. (1989a). Nature’
s Capacities and Their Measurement.

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.

And double quotes:

relatively specific practices
``instituting universal preschool''

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.


Suggestions for resolving the problem would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA  USA
eew...@bellsouth.net

Hatred destroys. Love heals.

- Eknath Easwaran

is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Colin Williams]

I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do
a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it
as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form. I
would like the lyx-users to tell me if they think its the right tool for
the job. I know lyx is nice for making mathematics papers,but is it good
for making a book which you want to reformat for displays and printed pages
of varying sizes? Are there other programs I should consider?

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Marcelo Acuña]

 I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do a 
 small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it as 
 an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form. I would 
 like the lyx-users to tell me if they think its the right tool for the job. 
 I know lyx is nice for making mathematics papers,but is it good for making a 
 book which you want to reformat for displays and printed pages of varying 
 sizes? Are there other programs I should consider? 




I think Lyx is the most appropriate tool to write a book, especially if 
you need format changes due Lyx global configuration capability.


Marcelo

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 07:15 AM, Eric Weir wrote:


When I attempt to publish [format and print to pdf] a document 
compiled from Scrivener and imported into LyX I get a long list of 
errors, all of which have to do with Lyx--or the document class I'm 
using, KOMA-Script article--not liking some of the punctuation carried 
over from Scrivener.


The major offender is--I'm going to describe, because I don't know the 
name--a long dash which Scrivener converts to when I enter two regular 
dashes in succession. Single dashes and some single and double 
quotation marks also give errors. [The error with the long 
dash--again, forgive my not knowing the name of the thing--may be due 
to the fact that I believe it is normally preceded and followed by a 
space; I recently switched to use of long dashes that without the 
preceding and following spaces.]


The long dash is called an em-dash. There's also a slightly shorter 
one called an en-dash. In LyX, these would be entered as --- and 
--, respectively. The spaces won't matter, and (at least in US 
typesetting) one doesn't normally use them.



This is the message I get regarding the long dash:

We believe this impasse—
between a rigorous method that is difficult

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.


The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote 
you mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which use 
Unicode.


Richard

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Paul A . Rubin]

In addition to Richard's suggestion, another option would be to open your LyX
document in a text editor and globally replace the Unicode character for the
long dash with two ordinary dashes.

Paul

program listing of child documents with accents

[Ricardo]

Hello.
I use lyx 1.6.7 and Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm not a lyx advanced user too.

I have no problem with the main document in lyx. I can use accents and see
them in the output. I have problems with insert;file;child documents and
some of the program listing options. Seems that accents and other symbols
are a problem when try to get the pdf output.The child documents are saved
UTF-8. Despite I browsed the web, and checked the listings package doc,
tested some options like extendedchars=true,  I can not get what I want. I
would like to see the child document as it's saved, the same way if I edit
it with a plain text editor, but I did not find the way to do it.
For example: I can not insert one word child document  àéèíòóú

I have defined Catalan as language in Lyx and unicode UTF-8 as
codification. With this options, and the *verbatim listing* for child
document,  I can export to pdf the main document with child documents. OK,
there are  no complaints, I get àéèíòóú inside a box on the main
document.  But I would like to use the *program listing* option, because I
need to breaklines for example. I have not found the way to do it. Lyx
complains when generate the pdf file if I change form verbatim listing, to
program listing (same stupid one word child document), despite any option I
tested with listing parameters.

Thanks in advance and sorry about my bad English.

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

 The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote you 
 mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which use Unicode.

Thanks, Richard. My only way to get from Scrivener to LaTeX/LyX is to compile 
in Scrivener. The out from Scrivener is a tex file. Would I then compile that 
with XeTeX or LuaTex? If so, could you give me quick pointers how to get 
started with that? Or a reference to instructions? 

I don't know if its possible, would another option be to get Scrivener to stop 
outputing Unicode characters?  

--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA 
eew...@bellsouth.net

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, 
we borrow it from our children. 

- Chief Seattle.

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 12:04 PM, Eric Weir wrote:


On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote 
you mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which 
use Unicode.


Thanks, Richard. My only way to get from Scrivener to LaTeX/LyX is to 
compile in Scrivener. The out from Scrivener is a tex file. Would I 
then compile that with XeTeX or LuaTex? If so, could you give me quick 
pointers how to get started with that? Or a reference to instructions?


Once you have the file in LyX, just try: ViewPDF(XeTeX), e.g. That 
said, I'm definitely not an expert on this encoding stuff. If you could 
produce a really simple example file---create it in Scrivener and export 
it as usual---that exhibits the problem, that will definitely help.


I don't know if its possible, would another option be to get Scrivener 
to stop outputing Unicode characters?



It might, but I don't know Scrivener.

Richard

Re: program listing of child documents with accents

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 11:20 AM, Ricardo wrote:

Hello.
I use lyx 1.6.7 and Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm not a lyx advanced user too.

I have no problem with the main document in lyx. I can use accents and 
see them in the output. I have problems with insert;file;child 
documents and some of the program listing options. Seems that accents 
and other symbols are a problem when try to get the pdf output.The 
child documents are saved UTF-8. Despite I browsed the web, and 
checked the listings package doc, tested some options like 
extendedchars=true,  I can not get what I want. I would like to see 
the child document as it's saved, the same way if I edit it with a 
plain text editor, but I did not find the way to do it.

For example: I can not insert one word child document  àéèíòóú

I have defined Catalan as language in Lyx and unicode UTF-8 as 
codification. With this options, and the *verbatim listing* for child 
document,  I can export to pdf the main document with child documents. 
OK, there are  no complaints, I get àéèíòóú inside a box on the main 
document.  But I would like to use the *program listing* option, 
because I need to breaklines for example. I have not found the way to 
do it. Lyx complains when generate the pdf file if I change form 
verbatim listing, to program listing (same stupid one word child 
document), despite any option I tested with listing parameters.


It's possible that LaTeX package doing the listings does not like UTF-8. 
I don't know. I'd suggest you look into the documentation for that 
package. It will help others to help you, too, if you could post a small 
set of example files that exhibit the problem.


Richard

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Steve Litt]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:53:27 -0800
Colin Williams co...@seattlesoft.com wrote:

 I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I
 will do a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going
 to publish it as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be
 in paperback form. I would like the lyx-users to tell me if they
 think its the right tool for the job. I know lyx is nice for making
 mathematics papers,but is it good for making a book which you want to
 reformat for displays and printed pages of varying sizes? Are there
 other programs I should consider?

Hi Colin,

The following is all *my opinion*, and should be taken in tandem with
the opinions of others.

I've written and am selling something like nine books, all but two of
which were written in LyX:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/

I use LyX because it's the easiest and quickest authoring environment
for writing big books, and it's versatile enough although
antiquated WordPerfect 5.1 has it beat in versatility. LyX also
produces the best-formatted result, although that's not an issue in my
case because both WordPerfect 5.1 and MS Word produce formatting that
are good enough for my marketplace. Of all my books, only The Key to
Everyday Excellence contains math, and the math it contains is about
5% of the book at most.

I've found MS Word to be an excellent book writing software also, as
long as 1) You format with styles and not by introducing individual
codes, and 2) You don't need the professional page layout yielded by
LyX and other LaTeX-based programs. In fact, both of those caveats are
true in my case. The reason I switched was simple enough -- there's no
MS Word for Linux, so when I switched to Linux in 2001, I switched to
LyX at the same time.

Bottom line: I use LyX because it authors fast enough and easily enough
that I don't usually forget my train of thought doing wordprocessor
logistics, and because it runs on my operating system.

You are writing a book destined to be both eBook and as a print
book, paperback format (I would think probably trade-paperback format
although you don't say). I'd say the primary person to answer your
question is your publisher. If your publisher wants it in MS-Word, give
it in MS-Word. If he wants it in LaTeX, give it in LaTeX. Docbook,
Docbook. By the way, if I'm correctly informed, LyX can export to
Docbook, and right as we speak Rob Oakes is writing a program to
convert LyX to MS Word, so you're pretty much covered by LyX. Also, if
by eBook you mean flowing-text, I wrote a program to convert LyX to
flowing-text .mobi, which calibre can easily convert to a high
quality .epub. My conversion program is here:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/projects/lyx2kindle/

My conversion program is pretty iffy -- you'll probably need to tweak
it a little to get the conversion to work, but it sure worked for me --
here's my LyX-authored Kindle book:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QTBLA2/

Now if you're doing self-publishing, and using the printer just to
print a PDF you send him, my personal viewpoint would be to use LyX.
Life's too short to use other stuff.

Whether your eBook will be PDF or flowable text, you'll need your eBook
LyX file and your print book LyX file to be slightly different. I'm
pretty sure you can maintain one LyX file (perhaps formatting to
8.5x11, or A1 if you're European, and then have a couple shellscripts
to convert that to either an eBook specific LyX file, or a print book
specific LyX file.

LyX is a LaTeX front-end. There are other LaTeX front ends, and I can't
speak to their quality. I know a lot of people who advocate
directly writing LaTeX or TeX. Personally, I think LyX is much faster
from an authoring standpoint than editing LaTeX. I think if you have a
very simple book, authoring in straight TeX is both simple enough and
fast enough to compete with LyX, but I don't do that, because some of
my books are complex enough to benefit from LyX, and I want to use one
program for all my authoring to maximally leverage my skills.

LyX has one huge downside you should know about. Creating new styles,
either character styles or paragraph styles (which are called
environments in LyX), is a major undertaking requiring some LaTeX
knowledge. The same paragraph style that would take 15 minutes in MS
Word could take a day in LyX. MS Word has a 32x speed advantage while
creating styles. But, as they say, although statistics don't lie, liars
can state statistics. If you have 20 hard to make styles, you save 20
days in stylemaking going with MS Word. But when you ammortize that 20
days over the time taken to write a 200 page book, 20 days is NOTHING.
And of course, if you get a few of those MS Word oops, I can no longer
read myself problems, and haven't backed up religiously, you just blew
your 20 days.

My recommendation to people is, as they need new styles, use LyX's
Copystyle feature to make the new style in the simplest and quickest
way possible so you can get 

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 12.02.2012 14:53, schrieb Colin Williams:


I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do
a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it
as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form.


If you view the LyX manuals as PDF and you like them, LyX is the right choice.
Here are the PDFs:
http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/DocumentationDevelopment#EmbeddedObjects

To start writing a book I suggest to start with LyX's thesis template files. You find them in LyX's 
installation folder under \Resources\templates\thesis.


regards Uwe

Re: Initials Module

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 12.02.2012 13:40, schrieb d c:


The Initials module seems woefully undocumented and I have figured out how to
get it work, but I doubt it is the correct way.


Have you had a look at sec. 6.3 Initials of the EmbeddedObjects manual that you find in LyX's Help 
menu?


regards Uwe

Re: Table numbering problem

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 26.01.2012 17:21, schrieb Emilio Murado:


I have a problem numbering tables. I have a table nested into another, and
both are inside a figure.


You have not nested them into figures and this would also only cause problems.


When I take a look at the figures inside LyX, they are all ok. But when I
export to DVI or PDF, the figures are counting in +2 increments. The first
figure is 2, the second is 4...


This is because you used longtables within table floats. These types have their own numbering and 
thus the table counter is increased by 2. Note that the concept of a longtable is that it cannot 
float but page breaks are allowed. Therefore it is not sensible to add them to table floats.


For more info about tables and longtables, see chapter 2 Tables of the EmbeddedObjects manual that 
you find in LyX's Help menu.


regards Uwe

Rename bibliography when using thesis.lyx template

[Chris Hennick]

According to http://wiki.lyx.org/FAQ/Unsorted#renameEnv, I should be able
to rename my bibliography to References by changing \bibname or \refname.
But neither of the listed tricks (Babel and non-Babel) works -- it still
renders named Bibliography. Anyone know how to fix it when using that
template?

Sincerely,
Chris Hennick
Trent University
Peterborough, ON, Canada
http://softwetware.blogspot.com/

Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Eric Weir]

When I attempt to publish [format and print to pdf] a document compiled from 
Scrivener and imported into LyX I get a long list of errors, all of which have 
to do with Lyx--or the document class I'm using, KOMA-Script article--not 
liking some of the punctuation carried over from Scrivener. 

The major offender is--I'm going to describe, because I don't know the name--a 
long dash which Scrivener converts to when I enter two regular dashes in 
succession. Single dashes and some single and double quotation marks also give 
errors. [The error with the long dash--again, forgive my not knowing the name 
of the thing--may be due to the fact that I believe it is normally preceded and 
followed by a space; I recently switched to use of long dashes that without the 
preceding and following spaces.]

This is the message I get regarding the long dash:

We believe this impasse—
between a rigorous method that is difficult

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.

My first thought was to go back to Scrivener and change the offending 
characters--adding spaces before and after double dashes--but that might be 
unnecessarily laborious, and will not work for the offending single dashes and 
single and double quotes. Here is an error message related to single quotes:

Cartwright, N. (1989a). Nature’
s Capacities and Their Measurement.

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.

And double quotes:

relatively specific practices
``instituting universal preschool''

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.


Suggestions for resolving the problem would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA  USA
eew...@bellsouth.net

Hatred destroys. Love heals.

- Eknath Easwaran

is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Colin Williams]

I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do
a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it
as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form. I
would like the lyx-users to tell me if they think its the right tool for
the job. I know lyx is nice for making mathematics papers,but is it good
for making a book which you want to reformat for displays and printed pages
of varying sizes? Are there other programs I should consider?

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Marcelo Acuña]

 I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do a 
 small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it as 
 an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form. I would 
 like the lyx-users to tell me if they think its the right tool for the job. 
 I know lyx is nice for making mathematics papers,but is it good for making a 
 book which you want to reformat for displays and printed pages of varying 
 sizes? Are there other programs I should consider? 




I think Lyx is the most appropriate tool to write a book, especially if 
you need format changes due Lyx global configuration capability.


Marcelo

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 07:15 AM, Eric Weir wrote:


When I attempt to publish [format and print to pdf] a document 
compiled from Scrivener and imported into LyX I get a long list of 
errors, all of which have to do with Lyx--or the document class I'm 
using, KOMA-Script article--not liking some of the punctuation carried 
over from Scrivener.


The major offender is--I'm going to describe, because I don't know the 
name--a long dash which Scrivener converts to when I enter two regular 
dashes in succession. Single dashes and some single and double 
quotation marks also give errors. [The error with the long 
dash--again, forgive my not knowing the name of the thing--may be due 
to the fact that I believe it is normally preceded and followed by a 
space; I recently switched to use of long dashes that without the 
preceding and following spaces.]


The long dash is called an em-dash. There's also a slightly shorter 
one called an en-dash. In LyX, these would be entered as --- and 
--, respectively. The spaces won't matter, and (at least in US 
typesetting) one doesn't normally use them.



This is the message I get regarding the long dash:

We believe this impasse—
between a rigorous method that is difficult

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.


The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote 
you mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which use 
Unicode.


Richard

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Paul A . Rubin]

In addition to Richard's suggestion, another option would be to open your LyX
document in a text editor and globally replace the Unicode character for the
long dash with two ordinary dashes.

Paul

program listing of child documents with accents

[Ricardo]

Hello.
I use lyx 1.6.7 and Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm not a lyx advanced user too.

I have no problem with the main document in lyx. I can use accents and see
them in the output. I have problems with insert;file;child documents and
some of the program listing options. Seems that accents and other symbols
are a problem when try to get the pdf output.The child documents are saved
UTF-8. Despite I browsed the web, and checked the listings package doc,
tested some options like extendedchars=true,  I can not get what I want. I
would like to see the child document as it's saved, the same way if I edit
it with a plain text editor, but I did not find the way to do it.
For example: I can not insert one word child document  àéèíòóú

I have defined Catalan as language in Lyx and unicode UTF-8 as
codification. With this options, and the *verbatim listing* for child
document,  I can export to pdf the main document with child documents. OK,
there are  no complaints, I get àéèíòóú inside a box on the main
document.  But I would like to use the *program listing* option, because I
need to breaklines for example. I have not found the way to do it. Lyx
complains when generate the pdf file if I change form verbatim listing, to
program listing (same stupid one word child document), despite any option I
tested with listing parameters.

Thanks in advance and sorry about my bad English.

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

 The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote you 
 mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which use Unicode.

Thanks, Richard. My only way to get from Scrivener to LaTeX/LyX is to compile 
in Scrivener. The out from Scrivener is a tex file. Would I then compile that 
with XeTeX or LuaTex? If so, could you give me quick pointers how to get 
started with that? Or a reference to instructions? 

I don't know if its possible, would another option be to get Scrivener to stop 
outputing Unicode characters?  

--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA 
eew...@bellsouth.net

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, 
we borrow it from our children. 

- Chief Seattle.

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 12:04 PM, Eric Weir wrote:


On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote 
you mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which 
use Unicode.


Thanks, Richard. My only way to get from Scrivener to LaTeX/LyX is to 
compile in Scrivener. The out from Scrivener is a tex file. Would I 
then compile that with XeTeX or LuaTex? If so, could you give me quick 
pointers how to get started with that? Or a reference to instructions?


Once you have the file in LyX, just try: ViewPDF(XeTeX), e.g. That 
said, I'm definitely not an expert on this encoding stuff. If you could 
produce a really simple example file---create it in Scrivener and export 
it as usual---that exhibits the problem, that will definitely help.


I don't know if its possible, would another option be to get Scrivener 
to stop outputing Unicode characters?



It might, but I don't know Scrivener.

Richard

Re: program listing of child documents with accents

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 11:20 AM, Ricardo wrote:

Hello.
I use lyx 1.6.7 and Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm not a lyx advanced user too.

I have no problem with the main document in lyx. I can use accents and 
see them in the output. I have problems with insert;file;child 
documents and some of the program listing options. Seems that accents 
and other symbols are a problem when try to get the pdf output.The 
child documents are saved UTF-8. Despite I browsed the web, and 
checked the listings package doc, tested some options like 
extendedchars=true,  I can not get what I want. I would like to see 
the child document as it's saved, the same way if I edit it with a 
plain text editor, but I did not find the way to do it.

For example: I can not insert one word child document  àéèíòóú

I have defined Catalan as language in Lyx and unicode UTF-8 as 
codification. With this options, and the *verbatim listing* for child 
document,  I can export to pdf the main document with child documents. 
OK, there are  no complaints, I get àéèíòóú inside a box on the main 
document.  But I would like to use the *program listing* option, 
because I need to breaklines for example. I have not found the way to 
do it. Lyx complains when generate the pdf file if I change form 
verbatim listing, to program listing (same stupid one word child 
document), despite any option I tested with listing parameters.


It's possible that LaTeX package doing the listings does not like UTF-8. 
I don't know. I'd suggest you look into the documentation for that 
package. It will help others to help you, too, if you could post a small 
set of example files that exhibit the problem.


Richard

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Steve Litt]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:53:27 -0800
Colin Williams co...@seattlesoft.com wrote:

 I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I
 will do a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going
 to publish it as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be
 in paperback form. I would like the lyx-users to tell me if they
 think its the right tool for the job. I know lyx is nice for making
 mathematics papers,but is it good for making a book which you want to
 reformat for displays and printed pages of varying sizes? Are there
 other programs I should consider?

Hi Colin,

The following is all *my opinion*, and should be taken in tandem with
the opinions of others.

I've written and am selling something like nine books, all but two of
which were written in LyX:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/

I use LyX because it's the easiest and quickest authoring environment
for writing big books, and it's versatile enough although
antiquated WordPerfect 5.1 has it beat in versatility. LyX also
produces the best-formatted result, although that's not an issue in my
case because both WordPerfect 5.1 and MS Word produce formatting that
are good enough for my marketplace. Of all my books, only The Key to
Everyday Excellence contains math, and the math it contains is about
5% of the book at most.

I've found MS Word to be an excellent book writing software also, as
long as 1) You format with styles and not by introducing individual
codes, and 2) You don't need the professional page layout yielded by
LyX and other LaTeX-based programs. In fact, both of those caveats are
true in my case. The reason I switched was simple enough -- there's no
MS Word for Linux, so when I switched to Linux in 2001, I switched to
LyX at the same time.

Bottom line: I use LyX because it authors fast enough and easily enough
that I don't usually forget my train of thought doing wordprocessor
logistics, and because it runs on my operating system.

You are writing a book destined to be both eBook and as a print
book, paperback format (I would think probably trade-paperback format
although you don't say). I'd say the primary person to answer your
question is your publisher. If your publisher wants it in MS-Word, give
it in MS-Word. If he wants it in LaTeX, give it in LaTeX. Docbook,
Docbook. By the way, if I'm correctly informed, LyX can export to
Docbook, and right as we speak Rob Oakes is writing a program to
convert LyX to MS Word, so you're pretty much covered by LyX. Also, if
by eBook you mean flowing-text, I wrote a program to convert LyX to
flowing-text .mobi, which calibre can easily convert to a high
quality .epub. My conversion program is here:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/projects/lyx2kindle/

My conversion program is pretty iffy -- you'll probably need to tweak
it a little to get the conversion to work, but it sure worked for me --
here's my LyX-authored Kindle book:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QTBLA2/

Now if you're doing self-publishing, and using the printer just to
print a PDF you send him, my personal viewpoint would be to use LyX.
Life's too short to use other stuff.

Whether your eBook will be PDF or flowable text, you'll need your eBook
LyX file and your print book LyX file to be slightly different. I'm
pretty sure you can maintain one LyX file (perhaps formatting to
8.5x11, or A1 if you're European, and then have a couple shellscripts
to convert that to either an eBook specific LyX file, or a print book
specific LyX file.

LyX is a LaTeX front-end. There are other LaTeX front ends, and I can't
speak to their quality. I know a lot of people who advocate
directly writing LaTeX or TeX. Personally, I think LyX is much faster
from an authoring standpoint than editing LaTeX. I think if you have a
very simple book, authoring in straight TeX is both simple enough and
fast enough to compete with LyX, but I don't do that, because some of
my books are complex enough to benefit from LyX, and I want to use one
program for all my authoring to maximally leverage my skills.

LyX has one huge downside you should know about. Creating new styles,
either character styles or paragraph styles (which are called
environments in LyX), is a major undertaking requiring some LaTeX
knowledge. The same paragraph style that would take 15 minutes in MS
Word could take a day in LyX. MS Word has a 32x speed advantage while
creating styles. But, as they say, although statistics don't lie, liars
can state statistics. If you have 20 hard to make styles, you save 20
days in stylemaking going with MS Word. But when you ammortize that 20
days over the time taken to write a 200 page book, 20 days is NOTHING.
And of course, if you get a few of those MS Word oops, I can no longer
read myself problems, and haven't backed up religiously, you just blew
your 20 days.

My recommendation to people is, as they need new styles, use LyX's
Copystyle feature to make the new style in the simplest and quickest
way possible so you can get 

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 12.02.2012 14:53, schrieb Colin Williams:


I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do
a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it
as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form.


If you view the LyX manuals as PDF and you like them, LyX is the right choice.
Here are the PDFs:
http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/DocumentationDevelopment#EmbeddedObjects

To start writing a book I suggest to start with LyX's thesis template files. You find them in LyX's 
installation folder under \Resources\templates\thesis.


regards Uwe

Re: Initials Module

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 12.02.2012 13:40, schrieb d c:


The Initials module seems woefully undocumented and I have figured out how to
get it work, but I doubt it is the correct way.


Have you had a look at sec. 6.3 Initials of the EmbeddedObjects manual that you find in LyX's Help 
menu?


regards Uwe

Re: Table numbering problem

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 26.01.2012 17:21, schrieb Emilio Murado:


I have a problem numbering tables. I have a table nested into another, and
both are inside a figure.


You have not nested them into figures and this would also only cause problems.


When I take a look at the figures inside LyX, they are all ok. But when I
export to DVI or PDF, the figures are counting in +2 increments. The first
figure is 2, the second is 4...


This is because you used longtables within table floats. These types have their own numbering and 
thus the table counter is increased by 2. Note that the concept of a longtable is that it cannot 
float but page breaks are allowed. Therefore it is not sensible to add them to table floats.


For more info about tables and longtables, see chapter 2 Tables of the EmbeddedObjects manual that 
you find in LyX's Help menu.


regards Uwe

Rename bibliography when using thesis.lyx template

[Chris Hennick]

According to http://wiki.lyx.org/FAQ/Unsorted#renameEnv, I should be able
to rename my bibliography to References by changing \bibname or \refname.
But neither of the listed tricks (Babel and non-Babel) works -- it still
renders named Bibliography. Anyone know how to fix it when using that
template?

Sincerely,
Chris Hennick
Trent University
Peterborough, ON, Canada
http://softwetware.blogspot.com/

Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Eric Weir]

When I attempt to publish [format and print to pdf] a document compiled from 
Scrivener and imported into LyX I get a long list of errors, all of which have 
to do with Lyx--or the document class I'm using, KOMA-Script article--not 
liking some of the punctuation carried over from Scrivener. 

The major offender is--I'm going to describe, because I don't know the name--a 
long dash which Scrivener converts to when I enter two regular dashes in 
succession. Single dashes and some single and double quotation marks also give 
errors. [The error with the long dash--again, forgive my not knowing the name 
of the thing--may be due to the fact that I believe it is normally preceded and 
followed by a space; I recently switched to use of long dashes that without the 
preceding and following spaces.]

This is the message I get regarding the long dash:

We believe this impasse—
between a rigorous method that is difficult

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.

My first thought was to go back to Scrivener and change the offending 
characters--adding spaces before and after double dashes--but that might be 
unnecessarily laborious, and will not work for the offending single dashes and 
single and double quotes. Here is an error message related to single quotes:

Cartwright, N. (1989a). Nature’
s Capacities and Their Measurement.

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.

And double quotes:

relatively specific practices
``instituting universal preschool''

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.


Suggestions for resolving the problem would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA  USA
eew...@bellsouth.net

"Hatred destroys. Love heals."

- Eknath Easwaran

is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Colin Williams]

I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do
a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it
as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form. I
would like the lyx-users to tell me if they think its the right tool for
the job. I know lyx is nice for making mathematics papers,but is it good
for making a book which you want to reformat for displays and printed pages
of varying sizes? Are there other programs I should consider?

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Marcelo Acuña]

> I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do a 
> small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am >certain I'm going to publish it as 
> an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form. I would 
> like the >lyx-users to tell me if they think its the right tool for the job. 
> I know lyx is nice for making mathematics papers,but is it >good for making a 
> book which you want to reformat for displays and printed pages of varying 
> sizes? Are there other >programs I should consider? 

>>


I think Lyx is the most appropriate tool to write a book, especially if 
you need format changes due Lyx global configuration capability.


Marcelo

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 07:15 AM, Eric Weir wrote:


When I attempt to publish [format and print to pdf] a document 
compiled from Scrivener and imported into LyX I get a long list of 
errors, all of which have to do with Lyx--or the document class I'm 
using, KOMA-Script article--not liking some of the punctuation carried 
over from Scrivener.


The major offender is--I'm going to describe, because I don't know the 
name--a long dash which Scrivener converts to when I enter two regular 
dashes in succession. Single dashes and some single and double 
quotation marks also give errors. [The error with the long 
dash--again, forgive my not knowing the name of the thing--may be due 
to the fact that I believe it is normally preceded and followed by a 
space; I recently switched to use of long dashes that without the 
preceding and following spaces.]


The long dash is called an "em-dash". There's also a slightly shorter 
one called an "en-dash". In LyX, these would be entered as "---" and 
"--", respectively. The spaces won't matter, and (at least in US 
typesetting) one doesn't normally use them.



This is the message I get regarding the long dash:

We believe this impasse—
between a rigorous method that is difficult

You need to provide a definition with \DeclareInputText
or \DeclareInputMath before using this key.


The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote 
you mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which use 
Unicode.


Richard

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Paul A . Rubin]

In addition to Richard's suggestion, another option would be to open your LyX
document in a text editor and globally replace the Unicode character for the
long dash with two ordinary dashes.

Paul

program listing of child documents with accents

[Ricardo]

Hello.
I use lyx 1.6.7 and Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm not a lyx advanced user too.

I have no problem with the main document in lyx. I can use accents and see
them in the output. I have problems with insert;file;child documents and
some of the program listing options. Seems that accents and other symbols
are a problem when try to get the pdf output.The child documents are saved
UTF-8. Despite I browsed the web, and checked the listings package doc,
tested some options like extendedchars=true,  I can not get what I want. I
would like to see the child document as it's saved, the same way if I edit
it with a plain text editor, but I did not find the way to do it.
For example: I can not insert one word child document  "àéèíòóú"

I have defined Catalan as language in Lyx and unicode UTF-8 as
codification. With this options, and the *verbatim listing* for child
document,  I can export to pdf the main document with child documents. OK,
there are  no complaints, I get "àéèíòóú" inside a box on the main
document.  But I would like to use the *program listing* option, because I
need to breaklines for example. I have not found the way to do it. Lyx
complains when generate the pdf file if I change form verbatim listing, to
program listing (same stupid one word child document), despite any option I
tested with listing parameters.

Thanks in advance and sorry about my bad English.

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

> The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote you 
> mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which use Unicode.

Thanks, Richard. My only way to get from Scrivener to LaTeX/LyX is to compile 
in Scrivener. The out from Scrivener is a tex file. Would I then compile that 
with XeTeX or LuaTex? If so, could you give me quick pointers how to get 
started with that? Or a reference to instructions? 

I don't know if its possible, would another option be to get Scrivener to stop 
outputing Unicode characters?  

--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA 
eew...@bellsouth.net

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, 
we borrow it from our children." 

- Chief Seattle.

Re: Errors on publishing [to pdf]

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 12:04 PM, Eric Weir wrote:


On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:41 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

The problem may be that these are Unicode characters (so is the quote 
you mentioned). You might try compiling with XeTeX or LuaTeX, which 
use Unicode.


Thanks, Richard. My only way to get from Scrivener to LaTeX/LyX is to 
compile in Scrivener. The out from Scrivener is a tex file. Would I 
then compile that with XeTeX or LuaTex? If so, could you give me quick 
pointers how to get started with that? Or a reference to instructions?


Once you have the file in LyX, just try: View>PDF(XeTeX), e.g. That 
said, I'm definitely not an expert on this encoding stuff. If you could 
produce a really simple example file---create it in Scrivener and export 
it as usual---that exhibits the problem, that will definitely help.


I don't know if its possible, would another option be to get Scrivener 
to stop outputing Unicode characters?



It might, but I don't know Scrivener.

Richard

Re: program listing of child documents with accents

[Richard Heck]

On 02/12/2012 11:20 AM, Ricardo wrote:

Hello.
I use lyx 1.6.7 and Debian GNU/Linux 6.0

Sorry if it's a stupid question, I'm not a lyx advanced user too.

I have no problem with the main document in lyx. I can use accents and 
see them in the output. I have problems with insert;file;child 
documents and some of the program listing options. Seems that accents 
and other symbols are a problem when try to get the pdf output.The 
child documents are saved UTF-8. Despite I browsed the web, and 
checked the listings package doc, tested some options like 
extendedchars=true,  I can not get what I want. I would like to see 
the child document as it's saved, the same way if I edit it with a 
plain text editor, but I did not find the way to do it.

For example: I can not insert one word child document  "àéèíòóú"

I have defined Catalan as language in Lyx and unicode UTF-8 as 
codification. With this options, and the *verbatim listing* for child 
document,  I can export to pdf the main document with child documents. 
OK, there are  no complaints, I get "àéèíòóú" inside a box on the main 
document.  But I would like to use the *program listing* option, 
because I need to breaklines for example. I have not found the way to 
do it. Lyx complains when generate the pdf file if I change form 
verbatim listing, to program listing (same stupid one word child 
document), despite any option I tested with listing parameters.


It's possible that LaTeX package doing the listings does not like UTF-8. 
I don't know. I'd suggest you look into the documentation for that 
package. It will help others to help you, too, if you could post a small 
set of example files that exhibit the problem.


Richard

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Steve Litt]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:53:27 -0800
Colin Williams  wrote:

> I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I
> will do a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going
> to publish it as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be
> in paperback form. I would like the lyx-users to tell me if they
> think its the right tool for the job. I know lyx is nice for making
> mathematics papers,but is it good for making a book which you want to
> reformat for displays and printed pages of varying sizes? Are there
> other programs I should consider?

Hi Colin,

The following is all *my opinion*, and should be taken in tandem with
the opinions of others.

I've written and am selling something like nine books, all but two of
which were written in LyX:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/

I use LyX because it's the easiest and quickest authoring environment
for writing big books, and it's versatile enough although
antiquated WordPerfect 5.1 has it beat in versatility. LyX also
produces the best-formatted result, although that's not an issue in my
case because both WordPerfect 5.1 and MS Word produce formatting that
are good enough for my marketplace. Of all my books, only "The Key to
Everyday Excellence" contains math, and the math it contains is about
5% of the book at most.

I've found MS Word to be an excellent book writing software also, as
long as 1) You format with styles and not by introducing individual
codes, and 2) You don't need the professional page layout yielded by
LyX and other LaTeX-based programs. In fact, both of those caveats are
true in my case. The reason I switched was simple enough -- there's no
MS Word for Linux, so when I switched to Linux in 2001, I switched to
LyX at the same time.

Bottom line: I use LyX because it authors fast enough and easily enough
that I don't usually forget my train of thought doing wordprocessor
logistics, and because it runs on my operating system.

You are writing a book destined to be both eBook and as a print
book, paperback format (I would think probably trade-paperback format
although you don't say). I'd say the primary person to answer your
question is your publisher. If your publisher wants it in MS-Word, give
it in MS-Word. If he wants it in LaTeX, give it in LaTeX. Docbook,
Docbook. By the way, if I'm correctly informed, LyX can export to
Docbook, and right as we speak Rob Oakes is writing a program to
convert LyX to MS Word, so you're pretty much covered by LyX. Also, if
by eBook you mean flowing-text, I wrote a program to convert LyX to
flowing-text .mobi, which calibre can easily convert to a high
quality .epub. My conversion program is here:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/projects/lyx2kindle/

My conversion program is pretty iffy -- you'll probably need to tweak
it a little to get the conversion to work, but it sure worked for me --
here's my LyX-authored Kindle book:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QTBLA2/

Now if you're doing self-publishing, and using the printer just to
print a PDF you send him, my personal viewpoint would be to use LyX.
Life's too short to use other stuff.

Whether your eBook will be PDF or flowable text, you'll need your eBook
LyX file and your print book LyX file to be slightly different. I'm
pretty sure you can maintain one LyX file (perhaps formatting to
8.5x11, or A1 if you're European, and then have a couple shellscripts
to convert that to either an eBook specific LyX file, or a print book
specific LyX file.

LyX is a LaTeX front-end. There are other LaTeX front ends, and I can't
speak to their quality. I know a lot of people who advocate
directly writing LaTeX or TeX. Personally, I think LyX is much faster
from an authoring standpoint than editing LaTeX. I think if you have a
very simple book, authoring in straight TeX is both simple enough and
fast enough to compete with LyX, but I don't do that, because some of
my books are complex enough to benefit from LyX, and I want to use one
program for all my authoring to maximally leverage my skills.

LyX has one huge downside you should know about. Creating new styles,
either character styles or paragraph styles (which are called
"environments" in LyX), is a major undertaking requiring some LaTeX
knowledge. The same paragraph style that would take 15 minutes in MS
Word could take a day in LyX. MS Word has a 32x speed advantage while
creating styles. But, as they say, although statistics don't lie, liars
can state statistics. If you have 20 hard to make styles, you save 20
days in stylemaking going with MS Word. But when you ammortize that 20
days over the time taken to write a 200 page book, 20 days is NOTHING.
And of course, if you get a few of those MS Word "oops, I can no longer
read myself" problems, and haven't backed up religiously, you just blew
your 20 days.

My recommendation to people is, as they need new styles, use LyX's
"Copystyle" feature to make the new style in the simplest and quickest
way 

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 12.02.2012 14:53, schrieb Colin Williams:


I'm writing a book. I would like to consider the possibility that I will do
a small print run of 1000-5000 copies. I am certain I'm going to publish it
as an ebook. I would expect the printed book would be in paperback form.


If you view the LyX manuals as PDF and you like them, LyX is the right choice.
Here are the PDFs:
http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/DocumentationDevelopment#EmbeddedObjects

To start writing a book I suggest to start with LyX's thesis template files. You find them in LyX's 
installation folder under \Resources\templates\thesis.


regards Uwe

Re: Initials Module

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 12.02.2012 13:40, schrieb d c:


The Initials module seems woefully undocumented and I have figured out how to
get it work, but I doubt it is the correct way.


Have you had a look at sec. 6.3 "Initials" of the EmbeddedObjects manual that you find in LyX's Help 
menu?


regards Uwe

Re: Table numbering problem

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 26.01.2012 17:21, schrieb Emilio Murado:


I have a problem numbering tables. I have a table nested into another, and
both are inside a figure.


You have not nested them into figures and this would also only cause problems.


When I take a look at the figures inside LyX, they are all ok. But when I
export to DVI or PDF, the figures are counting in +2 increments. The first
figure is 2, the second is 4...


This is because you used longtables within table floats. These types have their own numbering and 
thus the table counter is increased by 2. Note that the concept of a longtable is that it cannot 
float but page breaks are allowed. Therefore it is not sensible to add them to table floats.


For more info about tables and longtables, see chapter 2 "Tables" of the EmbeddedObjects manual that 
you find in LyX's Help menu.


regards Uwe

Rename bibliography when using thesis.lyx template

[Chris Hennick]

According to http://wiki.lyx.org/FAQ/Unsorted#renameEnv, I should be able
to rename my bibliography to "References" by changing \bibname or \refname.
But neither of the listed tricks (Babel and non-Babel) works -- it still
renders named "Bibliography". Anyone know how to fix it when using that
template?

Sincerely,
Chris Hennick
Trent University
Peterborough, ON, Canada
http://softwetware.blogspot.com/