Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On Tue, 3 Sep 2013 14:46:20 +0200 Wolfgang Keller wrote: > > LyX strives to offer an authoring environment that requires no (or > > truly minimal) knowledge of LaTeX. > > And this feature is pretty foolproof. > > As proven by this fool. >;-> > > > In practice, however, rudimentary LaTeX knowledge is always required > > when working with LyX, > > You can learn all that from the manuals while authoring your first > document with LyX. I did it exactly that way myself. And when you do it that way, my strong suggestion is that when, while writing, you find need for a new environment, you spend minimal time creating that environment (maybe a Copystyle plus margin change plus a semi-distinctive font on both LyX environment and PDF output), and then, when you have several consecutive hours to do nothing but LaTeX, tweak your environments to be how you want them to be. My experience tells me it's better to wear one hat at a time: Either you're a writer or a LaTeX (wannabe) expert, and when you wear one of these hats you should be able to devote several consecutive hours to it, because they don't mix well. HTH, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
> LyX strives to offer an authoring environment that requires no (or > truly minimal) knowledge of LaTeX. And this feature is pretty foolproof. As proven by this fool. >;-> > In practice, however, rudimentary LaTeX knowledge is always required > when working with LyX, You can learn all that from the manuals while authoring your first document with LyX. I did it exactly that way myself. Sincerely, Wolfgang
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On 09/02/2013 01:02 AM, Alan L Tyree wrote: Ken Springer writes: On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote: On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200 Liviu Andronic wrote: It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping for. But it intrigues me. :-) I've got some simple help documents I want to create, and I want them to look as best as I can. So, I think, in about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work with it, then get into LyX. FWIW, I don't agree with this. You can become productive with LyX *very* quickly without knowing anything about LaTeX. You can produce nice looking standardised documents. It's magic. Of course, you will eventually want to customise. THAT is the time to start looking at LaTeX IMHO. I agree. We have LyX developers who know almost no LaTeX, and who use LyX extensively in their own work. The question is exactly how much customization you want to do. If the standard classes work for you, and in many cases they will, then you do not need to know any LaTeX to use LyX. Even the unexpected compilation errors should be rare. These are usually due to precisely the kind of customization you don't really have to do. Richard
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On 02/09/13 17:02, Alan L Tyree wrote: You can become productive with LyX*very* quickly without knowing anything about LaTeX. Agreed! I wish that Lyx had been available back in the 1960's when we had to produce a heap of technical training manuals - very quickly. Gordon Tauranga N.Z.
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 1:02 AM, Alan L Tyree wrote: > > Ken Springer writes: > > > On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote: > >> On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200 > >> Liviu Andronic wrote: > > > > > > > > It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping > for. > > > > But it intrigues me. :-) I've got some simple help documents I want > > to create, and I want them to look as best as I can. So, I think, in > > about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work > > with it, then get into LyX. > FWIW, I don't agree with this. You can become productive with LyX *very* > quickly without knowing anything about LaTeX. You can produce nice > looking standardised documents. It's magic. > Seconded. I began using LyX to typeset assignments for a logic class back when I still didn't have any real knowledge of LaTeX (not that my LaTeX knowledge is all that extensive now), and things more or less just turned out nice and well-formatted without any effort on my part. > Of course, you will eventually want to customise. THAT is the time to > start looking at LaTeX IMHO. > > Cheers, > Alan > > > > > Thanks to everyone for all the advice offered. > > > -- > Alan L Tyree http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan > Tel: 04 2748 6206 sip:172...@iptel.org >
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
Ken Springer writes: > On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote: >> On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200 >> Liviu Andronic wrote: > > > > It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping for. > > But it intrigues me. :-) I've got some simple help documents I want > to create, and I want them to look as best as I can. So, I think, in > about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work > with it, then get into LyX. FWIW, I don't agree with this. You can become productive with LyX *very* quickly without knowing anything about LaTeX. You can produce nice looking standardised documents. It's magic. Of course, you will eventually want to customise. THAT is the time to start looking at LaTeX IMHO. Cheers, Alan > > Thanks to everyone for all the advice offered. -- Alan L Tyree http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan Tel: 04 2748 6206 sip:172...@iptel.org
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote: On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200 Liviu Andronic wrote: It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping for. But it intrigues me. :-) I've got some simple help documents I want to create, and I want them to look as best as I can. So, I think, in about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work with it, then get into LyX. Thanks to everyone for all the advice offered. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.4 Firefox 23.0 Thunderbird 17.0.8 LibreOffice 4.1.04
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
I'd say a little LaTeX knowledge is useful--don't overdo it. I put together a 14 page report in LateX that taught me enough about some of the underlying mechanics of LyX to be helpful. I don't think I'm ever going to be an exclusive LaTeX user.. From: Ken Springer To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2013 11:10:54 PM Subject: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX First, another thanks for all the replies to my thread about using LyX as a word processor. In reading some of those replies, I'm left wondering a bit about LyX and LaTeX and their relationship. As well as TeX, for that matter. When I was really into learning a bit about desktop publishing, I bought a copy of Donald Knuth's books, The TeXbook and The METAfontbook, but never read them. If I'm going to try out LyX in the end, would it be of any value to me to do a little experimenting with LaTeX and Tex first, or just jump in the pool? LOL -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.4 Firefox 23.0 Thunderbird 17.0.8 LibreOffice 4.1.04
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200 Liviu Andronic wrote: > On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 5:10 AM, Ken Springer wrote: > > If I'm going to try out LyX in the end, would it be of any value to > > me to do a little experimenting with LaTeX and Tex first, or just > > jump in the pool? > > > LyX strives to offer an authoring environment that requires no (or > truly minimal) knowledge of LaTeX. In practice, however, rudimentary > LaTeX knowledge is always required when working with LyX, be it when > setting up your bibliography, understanding the UI structures, > inserting appropriate symbols or when dealing with unexpected > compilation errors. I'd add that if you want to add your own environments and make them look a certain way, LyX requires a *huge* knowledge of LaTeX. This fact doesn't materially contradict anything you write in the rest of this document. The way I work is, when finding a need for a new environment or character style, I immediately put it in, perhaps with a CopyStyle, using just enough LaTeX to make it look different from surrounding text, even if it's nothing like my desires for the finished product. Ellapsed time, 3 to 5 minutes, and I'm back to banging out verbiage. Then, on a day when I'm not whomping out content, I'll search-engine all over the place finding out what I need in order to achieve my desired look, experiment, and code it. Sometimes, when it's super-challenging, I do the whole thing in LaTeX first, and only after the LaTeX is perfect do I port it to LyX. Doing it this way limits the number of variables involved, increases understanding, and *greatly* reduces the time consumed by each change/compile/view cycle. And this discussion wouldn't be complete without adding that a lot of people have outstanding memories and ability to search CTAN, and can find package solutions so they need no LaTeX knowledge at all (though a lot of those same people have a lot more LaTeX knowledge than I do.) If you want to become one of these people, I'd highly recommend starting with the LaTeX Configuration manual available under Help. It lists a whole lot of handy packages. The more packages you know and can use, the less LaTeX you need to know. > > I'd say that LyX works very well for novices to learn the basics of > LaTeX. Work on your document and see in View > Source how LyX prepares > the LaTeX code for you. So best would be not to worry about LaTeX too > much in the beginning; you'll pick it up on the way. > > The most time-consuming part of learning LyX is making your first > document. Which isn't very time consuming. You run LyX, say File->New, and start typing. Paragraph styles, which we call "Environments", are available from a dropdown on the toolbar. Character styles are available from Edit->Text_Style on the menu. > So a good way to proceed would be to make your way through > the Introduction and the Tutorial (and maybe the LyX Essentials: > https://sites.google.com/site/tsewiki/resources/latex ), and then > start creating some not-very-important document. In the process you'll > start learning a lot of things LaTeX (and LyX). Pre-Cisely! I didn't read the tutorial first, and was sorry about that later. Also, the User's Guide is a vital part of your every day lookups. Actually, every document listed under LyX's Help menu is very useful, but these are especially so. And once you're using styles (environments and character styles), be sure to look at the Customization manual under Paragraph styles (search is the easiest way to find it), and search Flex Insets to find the section about character styles. When you DO need LaTeX, I've written some easy to read stuff here: * http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/200210/200210.htm * http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm * http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/ownlists.htm Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX
On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 5:10 AM, Ken Springer wrote: > If I'm going to try out LyX in the end, would it be of any value to me to do > a little experimenting with LaTeX and Tex first, or just jump in the pool? > LyX strives to offer an authoring environment that requires no (or truly minimal) knowledge of LaTeX. In practice, however, rudimentary LaTeX knowledge is always required when working with LyX, be it when setting up your bibliography, understanding the UI structures, inserting appropriate symbols or when dealing with unexpected compilation errors. I'd say that LyX works very well for novices to learn the basics of LaTeX. Work on your document and see in View > Source how LyX prepares the LaTeX code for you. So best would be not to worry about LaTeX too much in the beginning; you'll pick it up on the way. The most time-consuming part of learning LyX is making your first document. So a good way to proceed would be to make your way through the Introduction and the Tutorial (and maybe the LyX Essentials: https://sites.google.com/site/tsewiki/resources/latex ), and then start creating some not-very-important document. In the process you'll start learning a lot of things LaTeX (and LyX). Regards, Liviu
