Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Alan Tyree]

And my grandfather said "Not one of them ever dies. "

On Sun, 10 Oct 2021, 7:06 pm Steve Litt,  wrote:

> Alan Tyree said on Sun, 10 Oct 2021 08:06:24 +1100
>
> >Oh, Steve, how I wish that were true!
> >
> >What really happens is that they see a word they would like to
> >emphasise, so they use direct formatting to do it. No need to use a
> >style when you only want to change one word, right?  Then another
> >word. Then a paragraph. And this one page should be different from the
> >others.
> >
> >Pretty soon you have 15 different fonts on every page, because if you
> >give these people 15 fonts, they will use them all.
>
> :-)
>
> One of my buddies once told me there's an idiot born every minute.
> Perhaps that's an explanation. :-)
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Steve Litt]

Alan Tyree said on Sun, 10 Oct 2021 08:06:24 +1100

>Oh, Steve, how I wish that were true!
>
>What really happens is that they see a word they would like to
>emphasise, so they use direct formatting to do it. No need to use a
>style when you only want to change one word, right?  Then another
>word. Then a paragraph. And this one page should be different from the
>others.
>
>Pretty soon you have 15 different fonts on every page, because if you
>give these people 15 fonts, they will use them all.

:-)

One of my buddies once told me there's an idiot born every minute.
Perhaps that's an explanation. :-)

SteveT

Steve Litt 
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Rich Shepard]

On Sun, 10 Oct 2021, Alan Tyree wrote:


Pretty soon you have 15 different fonts on every page, because if you give
these people 15 fonts, they will use them all.


Alan,

In the 1980s when desktop page layout applications came out for DOS many
people bought them and advertised themselves as graphic artists. The did
what you wrote, and much more. Ugly stuff.

Rich
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Alan Tyree]

Oh, Steve, how I wish that were true!

What really happens is that they see a word they would like to emphasise,
so they use direct formatting to do it. No need to use a style when you
only want to change one word, right?  Then another word. Then a paragraph.
And this one page should be different from the others.

Pretty soon you have 15 different fonts on every page, because if you give
these people 15 fonts, they will use them all.

Cheers,
Alan




On Sun, 10 Oct 2021 at 07:18, Steve Litt  wrote:

> Alan Tyree said on Fri, 8 Oct 2021 12:44:22 +1100
>
> >I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if
> >anyone had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.
>
> Have them write a book without styles, then show them what styles do
> for them, and they'll use styles for the rest of their lives.
>
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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>


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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Steve Litt]

Alan Tyree said on Fri, 8 Oct 2021 12:44:22 +1100

>I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if
>anyone had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.

Have them write a book without styles, then show them what styles do
for them, and they'll use styles for the rest of their lives.


SteveT

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[John White]

On Friday, October 8, 2021 12:14:12 AM PDT Charlie wrote:
>   Wolfgang Engelmann informed me regarding: Re: LibreOffice to
>       LyX on Fri, 8 Oct 2021 08:18:55 +0200
> 
> > > Everybody has Word and how difficult can it be?
> > 
> > not me
> > Wolfgang
> 
>   Replied thus:
> 
>   Or me. What is it?
> Charlie
> 
>   East Gippsland Wildlife Rehabilitators Inc..
>http://www.egwildlife.com.au/

Nor me.

John

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Charlie]

Wolfgang Engelmann informed me regarding: Re: LibreOffice to
LyX on Fri, 8 Oct 2021 08:18:55 +0200

> > Everybody has Word and how difficult can it be?  
> not me
> Wolfgang

Replied thus:

Or me. What is it?
Charlie

East Gippsland Wildlife Rehabilitators Inc..
   http://www.egwildlife.com.au/

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Wolfgang Engelmann]

Am 08.10.21 um 07:38 schrieb Dr Eberhard Lisse:


Everybody has Word and how difficult can it be?

not me
Wolfgang


Indeed it is very easy to write poorly looking documents in (Word and)
LibreOffice.

LaTeX enforces a lot of things, and this one of the reasons why you
really have to try hard to write poorly looking documents, though I
have seen many determined attempts at doing so over the years, some of
them successful.

The answer I ALWAYS get from Word/LO users is: Styles? What are Styles?

el

On 2021-10-08 03:44 , Alan Tyree wrote:

Why is it so hard to get people to use styles?  I worked recently with
a friend to convert his Word document into an ePub.  My advice is
don't ever, ever do this!  Even though I had advocated the use of
styles, he had spent hours using direct formatting.

And it is not just amateurs.  I write for a service that insists on
using Word documents (who knows why?)  and the stuff they send me is
all direct formatting.

I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if
anyone had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.

Cheers,
Alan

[...]


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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Everybody has Word and how difficult can it be?

Indeed it is very easy to write poorly looking documents in (Word and)
LibreOffice.

LaTeX enforces a lot of things, and this one of the reasons why you
really have to try hard to write poorly looking documents, though I
have seen many determined attempts at doing so over the years, some of
them successful.

The answer I ALWAYS get from Word/LO users is: Styles? What are Styles?

el

On 2021-10-08 03:44 , Alan Tyree wrote:

Why is it so hard to get people to use styles?  I worked recently with
a friend to convert his Word document into an ePub.  My advice is
don't ever, ever do this!  Even though I had advocated the use of
styles, he had spent hours using direct formatting.

And it is not just amateurs.  I write for a service that insists on
using Word documents (who knows why?)  and the stuff they send me is
all direct formatting.

I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if
anyone had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.

Cheers,
Alan

[...]

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Alan Tyree]

Good point about systems allowing direct formatting Virgil. It should be
prohibited. I didn't know that AbiWord had the lockdown feature ("lockdown"
being the trendy word in Oz these days!), but it is a good idea.

AbiWord is still available, the latest release for Linux was in July of
this year. The Windows version has been dropped though. I always thought
that it was a rather slick lightweight word processor in my pre-latex days.

One of the things I like about Markdown is that I can convince some of my
friends to use it. They are doing family diaries and trip chronicles and
such that don't require anything too fancy. The separation of writing and
formatting is a revelation to them.

Cheers,
Alan

On Fri, 8 Oct 2021 at 13:02, Virgil Arrington  wrote:

> On 10/7/2021 9:44 PM, Alan Tyree wrote:
> > Why is it so hard to get people to use styles? I worked recently with
> > a friend to convert his Word document into an ePub. My advice is don't
> > ever, ever do this! Even though I had advocated the use of styles, he
> > had spent hours using direct formatting.
> >
> > And it is not just amateurs. I write for a service that insists on
> > using Word documents (who knows why?) and the stuff they send me is
> > all direct formatting.
> >
> > I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if
> > anyone had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.
> >
> I used to teach a course in Law Office Technology for paralegal
> students. One of the sections required that I teach them how to use
> Word. I was determined to at least expose them to the benefit of styles.
> So, one day, I gave them an assignment. I had emailed them a Word
> document consisting of plain unformatted text. I then gave them a
> printed copy of the same text that I had previously formatted to look
> like a court document. I then told them that their assignment was to
> make their unformatted text look like the formatted result.
>
> I usually would let them struggle for about a half an hour, laboriously
> applying all sorts of direct formatting to their document. I would then
> intervene and demonstrate before their eyes how I could format the
> document in literally under a minute using the styles that were already
> available on all of their computers.
>
> That got their attention. I later graded all of their assignments not
> only on substance but on whether or not they had used styles instead of
> direct formatting.
>
> The obvious problem with styles is that it is time consuming to create
> and edit them. It is counter-intuitive to spend so much time on our
> tools when all we want is to get the work done. One drawback to programs
> like Word or LibreOffice is that they make direct formatting even
> possible whereas LyX and LaTeX all but force a person to use styles (or
> "environments"). I remember years ago another FOSS word processor --
> AbiWord -- had a feature called "lock styles" that would prevent direct
> formatting. I thought it was a great idea.
>
> Virgil
>


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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On 10/7/2021 9:44 PM, Alan Tyree wrote:
Why is it so hard to get people to use styles? I worked recently with 
a friend to convert his Word document into an ePub. My advice is don't 
ever, ever do this! Even though I had advocated the use of styles, he 
had spent hours using direct formatting.


And it is not just amateurs. I write for a service that insists on 
using Word documents (who knows why?) and the stuff they send me is 
all direct formatting.


I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if 
anyone had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.


I used to teach a course in Law Office Technology for paralegal 
students. One of the sections required that I teach them how to use 
Word. I was determined to at least expose them to the benefit of styles. 
So, one day, I gave them an assignment. I had emailed them a Word 
document consisting of plain unformatted text. I then gave them a 
printed copy of the same text that I had previously formatted to look 
like a court document. I then told them that their assignment was to 
make their unformatted text look like the formatted result.


I usually would let them struggle for about a half an hour, laboriously 
applying all sorts of direct formatting to their document. I would then 
intervene and demonstrate before their eyes how I could format the 
document in literally under a minute using the styles that were already 
available on all of their computers.


That got their attention. I later graded all of their assignments not 
only on substance but on whether or not they had used styles instead of 
direct formatting.


The obvious problem with styles is that it is time consuming to create 
and edit them. It is counter-intuitive to spend so much time on our 
tools when all we want is to get the work done. One drawback to programs 
like Word or LibreOffice is that they make direct formatting even 
possible whereas LyX and LaTeX all but force a person to use styles (or 
"environments"). I remember years ago another FOSS word processor -- 
AbiWord -- had a feature called "lock styles" that would prevent direct 
formatting. I thought it was a great idea.


Virgil
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Alan Tyree]

Why is it so hard to get people to use styles? I worked recently with a
friend to convert his Word document into an ePub. My advice is don't ever,
ever do this! Even though I had advocated the use of styles, he had spent
hours using direct formatting.

And it is not just amateurs. I write for a service that insists on using
Word documents (who knows why?) and the stuff they send me is all direct
formatting.

I know that this is preaching to the choir here, but I wondered if anyone
had a strategy that convinced others to work with styles.

Cheers,
Alan


On Fri, 8 Oct 2021 at 12:21, Virgil Arrington  wrote:

>
> On 10/7/2021 2:50 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:
> > Virgil,
> >
> > how could that work in ANY program ("dorward" compatibility)?
> >
> > But it's Open Source, just pull the latest version once out of beta.
>
> No doubt that is an easy solution with FOSS. But I recall a time when I
> once upgraded LyX on my Linux box without thinking of my Windows
> computer, for which upgraded LyX binaries were not yet available. For a
> few days, I had some compatibility issues between the two LyX versions
> on my computers.
>
> In a different context, file compatibility was the original issue in
> this thread. Osman had asked how to convert his LibreOffice letterhead
> to LyX format. Both you and Steve (wisely I believe) advised him against
> trying. LibreOffice and LyX are just two very different systems with
> different workflows and ways of getting tasks done.
>
> But, then Steve went one step further and shared his horror story trying
> to translate his book from Word to LibreOffice. From his experience, he
> concluded that LibreOffice doesn't work well with large documents with
> styles. That piqued my interest as I have never had any problem with
> LibreOffice's styles regardless of the size of the document.
>
> In fact, several years ago, I wanted my Business Ethics students to read
> and write a book report on Charles Sheldon's classic novel, In His
> Steps. Since the book is in the public domain, I thought I would save my
> students some money and provide them with free copies of the book. I
> downloaded a plain text version of the book and loaded it into
> LibreOffice. From there, I formatted the book using my pre-defined
> paragraph, page, and character styles. It came to 188 pages and
> LibreOffice handled it with ease. My styles didn't magically change on
> me. To be fair, as a novel, the formatting was very straightforward with
> no tables, charts, and only a couple footnotes. The most involved part
> was the table of contents.
>
> Once I got it completed in LibreOffice, I exported it into various file
> formats to meet my students' different needs. I exported it as a .DOC,
> .DOCX, .XHTML, .PDF, .EPUB, and Kindle MOBI. The first five formats I
> achieved with LibreOffice's export function. To get the MOBI file, I
> used Calibre. Everything went smooth as silk in all of the formats.
>
> I could be wrong, but I think the difference between my experience and
> Steve's is that I started with unformatted text whereas I assume he
> started with a formatted Word document. Over the decades I have learned
> that formatted documents created with different programs just don't like
> being altered by another program. For this reason, when I practiced law,
> I had my office computer installed with Word, WordPerfect, LibreOffice,
> and Atlantis. If I were collaborating with another colleague, I just
> used whatever program they used. Regardless of the program I used,
> nearly every time I tried to edit a non-native document, I ran into
> problems. It was exacerbated by the fact that usually, my colleagues
> used direct formatting rather than styles and that always created a hot
> mess. I learned to not expect a document created in Word with a
> combination of styles and direct formatting to work smoothly in
> LibreOffice with its own interpretation of styles (or WordPerfect, or
> AbiWord, or Atlantis, or LyX or whatever).
>
> All this to say that I find that LyX and LibreOffice are both very good
> programs and both can create very large documents without collapsing. I
> have gotten excellent results with both (as long as I remember to
> properly word my Google search for LaTeX guidance ;)
>
> Virgil
>
>
>
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On 10/7/2021 2:50 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:

Virgil,

how could that work in ANY program ("dorward" compatibility)?

But it's Open Source, just pull the latest version once out of beta.


No doubt that is an easy solution with FOSS. But I recall a time when I 
once upgraded LyX on my Linux box without thinking of my Windows 
computer, for which upgraded LyX binaries were not yet available. For a 
few days, I had some compatibility issues between the two LyX versions 
on my computers.


In a different context, file compatibility was the original issue in 
this thread. Osman had asked how to convert his LibreOffice letterhead 
to LyX format. Both you and Steve (wisely I believe) advised him against 
trying. LibreOffice and LyX are just two very different systems with 
different workflows and ways of getting tasks done.


But, then Steve went one step further and shared his horror story trying 
to translate his book from Word to LibreOffice. From his experience, he 
concluded that LibreOffice doesn't work well with large documents with 
styles. That piqued my interest as I have never had any problem with 
LibreOffice's styles regardless of the size of the document.


In fact, several years ago, I wanted my Business Ethics students to read 
and write a book report on Charles Sheldon's classic novel, In His 
Steps. Since the book is in the public domain, I thought I would save my 
students some money and provide them with free copies of the book. I 
downloaded a plain text version of the book and loaded it into 
LibreOffice. From there, I formatted the book using my pre-defined 
paragraph, page, and character styles. It came to 188 pages and 
LibreOffice handled it with ease. My styles didn't magically change on 
me. To be fair, as a novel, the formatting was very straightforward with 
no tables, charts, and only a couple footnotes. The most involved part 
was the table of contents.


Once I got it completed in LibreOffice, I exported it into various file 
formats to meet my students' different needs. I exported it as a .DOC, 
.DOCX, .XHTML, .PDF, .EPUB, and Kindle MOBI. The first five formats I 
achieved with LibreOffice's export function. To get the MOBI file, I 
used Calibre. Everything went smooth as silk in all of the formats.


I could be wrong, but I think the difference between my experience and 
Steve's is that I started with unformatted text whereas I assume he 
started with a formatted Word document. Over the decades I have learned 
that formatted documents created with different programs just don't like 
being altered by another program. For this reason, when I practiced law, 
I had my office computer installed with Word, WordPerfect, LibreOffice, 
and Atlantis. If I were collaborating with another colleague, I just 
used whatever program they used. Regardless of the program I used, 
nearly every time I tried to edit a non-native document, I ran into 
problems. It was exacerbated by the fact that usually, my colleagues 
used direct formatting rather than styles and that always created a hot 
mess. I learned to not expect a document created in Word with a 
combination of styles and direct formatting to work smoothly in 
LibreOffice with its own interpretation of styles (or WordPerfect, or 
AbiWord, or Atlantis, or LyX or whatever).


All this to say that I find that LyX and LibreOffice are both very good 
programs and both can create very large documents without collapsing. I 
have gotten excellent results with both (as long as I remember to 
properly word my Google search for LaTeX guidance ;)


Virgil



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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

Le 07/10/2021 à 14:05, Virgil Arrington a écrit :
I learned 
that, to be truly compatible, I had to not only use the same program as 
my colleague, but also the same version. This is even true with 
different versions of LyX. Every new release seems to change the source 
file format just enough that earlier versions of LyX have trouble 
reading documents created with later versions.


The rules with LyX versions are clear:

* all stable versions 2.x.y with same x are able to read/write files in 
the exact same 2.x format.


* all stable versions 2.x.y are able to read files of version 2.x' with 
x'export to format 2.x'.


* the last stable release of the 2.x series is able to read files from 
2.(x+1) series and to export to this version, although it can be 
expected that some features are turned to ERT. This last stable release 
is usually released at the same time as 2.(x+1).0.


If any of these descriptions is incorrect, please file a bug or complain 
here.


JMarc

PS: you can replace the 2. with 1., in case you have old files lying 
around :)

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Virgil,

how could that work in ANY program ("dorward" compatibility)?

But it's Open Source, just pull the latest version once out of beta.

The next one is rumored to support DocBook so you can get inti evenmore
trouble :-)-O

el

On 2021-10-07 14:05 , Virgil Arrington wrote:
[...]

This is even true with different versions of LyX. Every new release
seems to change the source file format just enough that earlier
versions of LyX have trouble reading documents created with later
versions.

[...]

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On 10/6/2021 11:14 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

After importing my 300 page book from MS Word to LibreOffice, I
looked extensively in the menu system, in the help docs, and on the
Internet to resolve my magically changing styles problem, all to no
avail.

LibreOffice is just fine if you don't use styles, but who would not use
styles when working with a large document?

I can't deny your experience, I think you may be unfairly blaming 
LibreOffice's and its styles.


I don't think the problem was with LibreOffice or with the size of your 
book. I think your problem lay in trying to import a styled 300 page 
book from Word to LibreOffice. Something always gets lost in translating 
documents between two programs. I have this happen to me even with 
unformatted text in different plain text editors if they are using 
different encoding.


Before my retirement, I was a practicing lawyer, and I often had to 
share documents with people who created or edited them on different 
systems, whether Word, WordPerfect or something else. If I was 
responsible to produce the final output, I learned to strip all 
formatting from the document and apply my own styles from scratch. I 
never had a problem with that method. Yes, it was time consuming, but it 
always worked, no matter how large the document. In reality, a MS Word 
paragraph style works differently from a LO Writer style. I learned 
that, to be truly compatible, I had to not only use the same program as 
my colleague, but also the same version. This is even true with 
different versions of LyX. Every new release seems to change the source 
file format just enough that earlier versions of LyX have trouble 
reading documents created with later versions.


LibreOffice's styles work just fine, even with large documents. I have a 
108 slide Impress presentation that works perfectly. But, I created and 
edited that file on LibreOffice; I wouldn't dream of trying to import an 
MS PowerPoint file into Impress without having problems, just as I would 
never dream of importing an Impress file into PowerPoint without problems.


Virgil

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Saša Janiška]

On Wed, 6 Oct 2021 23:14:10 -0400
Steve Litt  wrote:

Hello from Croatia and thank you for very informative and inspiring thread?

> LibreOffice is just fine if you don't use styles, but who would not
> use styles when working with a large document?
> 
> Working with LibreOffice reminds me of programming with gotos: It's
> easy and obvious, but as the things scale, at a certain point it
> collapses under its own weight.

Yes, I agree that LO could be appropriate for short & quick documents, but for
everything larger LyX/LateX are more suitable for the task...

Now, I'm curious if anyone tried to explore ConTeXt
(https://wiki.contextgarden.net) which is (more) monolithic in comparison with
LaTeX resulting in no clashes between different packages?

Yes, there is probably steep(er) learning curve, but in the long run?

(It would be great if LyX could handle ConteXt format, but I'm aware that LaTeX
market is huge in comparison...)


Sincerely,
Gour

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Steve Litt]

Virgil Arrington said on Tue, 5 Oct 2021 13:24:04 +

> LibreOffice makes learning new things much
>easier than LyX/LaTeX. Generally speaking, every LO function can be
>found by exploring its extensive menus and/or toolbars. Like a
>multiple choice test, the right answer is somewhere on the page, and
>such exploration is generally how I learn new things in LO. I just
>search the menu structure until I find what I need. 

After importing my 300 page book from MS Word to LibreOffice, I
looked extensively in the menu system, in the help docs, and on the
Internet to resolve my magically changing styles problem, all to no
avail. 

LibreOffice is just fine if you don't use styles, but who would not use
styles when working with a large document?

Working with LibreOffice reminds me of programming with gotos: It's
easy and obvious, but as the things scale, at a certain point it
collapses under its own weight.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On 10/5/2021 6:07 PM, Charlie wrote:

Nor can I say sticking with all the eggs in one program basket is
necessarily a good thing. But someone once said, "Linux, the lifetime
learning experience" In my autumn years; believe this to be correct,
and find it keeps my mind active.

I began using computers in 1985, and I naively believed I could find the 
perfect software for all my needs. Now, some 36 years later, I'm still 
searching and, like you, still learning.



As an aside: Retired? I was never as busy, nor learned more, before I
was retired.


Amen to that!


Thank you both again.


My pleasure.

Virgil

p.s., I love the international scope of this list. I'm in Georgia in the 
good ol' USofA, Dr. E.L. appears to be in Africa, and I take it you're 
in Australia. Absolutely wonderful.


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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Charlie,

you are welcome.

I have 2 years and 3 months on the clock :-) and I am probably going to
start learning Python then, when I will not need 30 years worth of perl
scripts any longer for day-to-day :-)-O

el


On 06/10/2021 00:07, Charlie wrote:
[...]

I would like to thank you both, Virgil and Dr Eberhard Lisse for your
interesting, informative tutorial.

[...]

As an aside: Retired?  I was never as busy, nor learned more, before I
was retired.

[...]

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

On 05/10/2021 22:51, Virgil Arrington wrote:

On 10/5/2021 2:45 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:

[...]

Actually constant misunderimprovements are one of the mistakes one
often makes in presentations.

I suspect you're right, but I just can't leave things alone.  


Once of my CPD/CME presentations (2016) was about what not to do in
PowerPoint :-)-O and I went so far as to have my colleagues choose which
font they want to see my presentations in and whether Sans Serif is
better for the screen than Serif (which it is).

Of course this intervention did not result in a change of behavior on
their part :-)-O, but I at least wanted to do what I preach (pardon the
pun).

[...]

Even setting this aside, adding your color redefinitions to the
preamble is only helpful if you know what the color codes "40" and
"8b1a1a" actually mean.


 https://www.google.com/search?q=color+8b1a1a

brings up the color picker as the first element on the page :-)-O


LibreOffice's method of pointing to a color in a palette on the
toolbar is certainly easier and quicker than making all these preamble
modifications.


This is a conceptual and intentional difference.


That said, I will concede that once these preamble changes are made in
LyX, you're good to go on any future documents.


With LaTeX you are forced or at least encouraged to make changes only
in the preamble (in the sense that they affect the appearance of the
elements such as titles globally) so that the document has a consistent
look.

Before TurnItIn, a colleague of mine lecturing at the U picked up
plagiarism by just looking at the styles as most younglings don't notice
(subtle) differences in their copy-'n-paste.

[...]

And, in case someone is interested I attach the template I use if I
have to write something for our weekly Continuing Professional
Development/ Continuing Medical Education sessions.


Your template is both beautiful and an example of what one can do with
a LaTeX education.  I'm impressed.  


Thanks.


But, I was curious when you said you use a modified Metropolis theme.


Actually, I use the plain Metropolis style with my (preamble)
modifications, and in particular stuff like showing the progress on the
bottom of the slides (read line) instead of the #/# (I don't want my
audience to start counting slides till to go :-)-O and the Questions?
page)


Just for fun, I wanted to see how much work it would be to add a
slanted date background to a LibreOffice Impress slide presentation.

[...]

There are a number of ways on how to watermark a document.

I like this background package because one can take a (church?)  logo,
experiment with size and transparency as the background of the slide,
and this gains a little real estate.
 

Thank you for sharing your template.  It has a wealth of information
in it and could save a user a ton of research time in learning how to
do what you already know.

[...]

Took a few weekends to RTFM :-)-O but has been quite stable now for many
years.


You have inspired me to play more with Beamer.  I'm impressed with
what you have accomplished.

[...]

I have been saying since Medical School in the 80's when I learned LaTeX
on VMS, that there is nothing I can do in Word that I can't do at least
as well in LaTeX, and this is still true (including LO Writer).

Something similar applies to PowerPoint/Impress/Keynote, though I grant
you Steve Jobs had a way with this (and a huge department designing
the presentation) :-)-O


greetings, el

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Charlie]

Virgil Arrington informed me regarding: Re: LibreOffice to LyX
on Tue, 5 Oct 2021 16:51:44 -0400

> On 10/5/2021 2:45 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:
> > Virgil,
> >
> > I have shortened and reformatted slightly for ease of reference.
> >
> > Actually constant misunderimprovements are one of the mistakes one
> > often makes in presentations.
> >  
> I suspect you're right, but I just can't leave things alone. I also 
> think there's some virtue in variety. In fact, one of the things I
> like about LyX is that I can change the total look and feel of a
> presentation by simply changing a theme name. That is so much
> quicker than giving an LO Impress presentation a makeover.
> 
> > The query
> >
> > https://www.google.com/search?q=lyx+text+color
> >
> > returns 126 results, the very FIRST of which
> >
> > https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/33225/color-text-in-lyx
> >
> > explains this quite nicely.  
> 
> > As xcolor is loaded by LyX I just add something like
> >
> > \definecolor{MyBlue}{HTML}{40}
> > \definecolor{Firebrick4}{HTML}{8b1a1a}
> >
> > to my preamble
> >
> > [...]
> >  
> Here, I think you're actually supporting my point in several
> respects. While I didn't find your specific StackExchange thread,
> what I did find said the same things. It first said to add
> \usepackage{xcolor} to the preamble, which I did, adding the
> [dvipsnames] option, which produced the error message I reported
> earlier. Even setting this aside, adding your color redefinitions to
> the preamble is only helpful if you know what the color codes
> "40" and "8b1a1a" actually mean. LibreOffice's method of pointing
> to a color in a palette on the toolbar is certainly easier and
> quicker than making all these preamble modifications.
> 
> That said, I will concede that once these preamble changes are made
> in LyX, you're good to go on any future documents.
> 
> >
> > It seems you have an aversion towards RTFM :-)-O, even though one
> > only needs to do this once.   
> 
> If you mean "Read the F* Manual," I have no such aversion. In fact, I 
> enjoy printing out and reading online software documentation. But,
> you have to admit, LaTeX manuals are massive. The xcolor manual is
> some 115 pages long. My favorite LaTeX package, Microtype, comes with
> a ~250 page manual. Even the LyX manuals included in its Help are
> voluminous. There are simply not enough hours in the day to read all
> there is on LyX/LaTeX. This is why I typically do an online search;
> that way I can hone in the issue I need resolved.
> 
> But, this only highlights my frustration. Part of me says I shouldn't 
> *have* to do online searches to accomplish what LibreOffice lets me
> do with a few points and clicks. Thirty years ago, in the days of
> MS-DOS, I had an IT manager tell me that his test for quality
> software was that good software didn't need a manual. I'm not sure I
> agree with him, but I will repeat that, with LibreOffice, I can
> usually solve all quandaries within the program itself without
> needing to search for answers on the web. In fact, I can't remember
> the last time I needed to do any kind of search to solve a problem
> with LibreOffice. With LyX/LaTeX, it's common practice.
> 
> 
> >
> > And, in case someone is interested I attach the template I use if I
> > have to write something for our weekly Continuing Professional
> > Development/ Continuing Medical Education sessions.
> >  
> Your template is both beautiful and an example of what one can do
> with a LaTeX education. I'm impressed. But, I was curious when you
> said you use a modified Metropolis theme. I've never seen Metropolis
> in any list of Beamer themes (see, e.g., Beamer Themes - Full List -
> LaTeX Beamer (latex-beamer.com)
> <https://latex-beamer.com/tutorials/beamer-themes/>. What is
> interesting is that Metropolis *is* included in LibreOffice Impress
> templates, although it looks quite different from your LyX
> presentation.
> 
> Just for fun, I wanted to see how much work it would be to add a
> slanted date background to a LibreOffice Impress slide presentation.
> I have never added such a background to a slide presentation before,
> so I was working cold. Without doing any research, I simply added a
> textbox, inserted my text, resized it, colored it gray, and then
> grabbed the textbox corners and turned to box to my liking. It then
> magically fell into the background of my main textbox containing my
> slide's content. The whole process took minutes and was very
> intuitive. Admittedly, I 

Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Virgil,

I have shortened and reformatted slightly for ease of reference.


On 2021-10-05 15:24 , Virgil Arrington wrote:
[...]

Unlike our good Dr.  E.L., I can't leave my slide designs alone.

[...]

Actually constant misunderimprovements are one of the mistakes one
often makes in presentations.


I tried to do the same thing in LyX.

[...]

After much searching online, I learned about the LaTeX \xcolor
package, which provides access to many, many more colors.  


The query

https://www.google.com/search?q=lyx+text+color

returns 126 results, the very FIRST of which

https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/33225/color-text-in-lyx

explains this quite nicely.

[...]

I then hit Ctrl-R to compile my slides and was met with a LaTeX error
of "Option clash for package xcolor."  Say, what!?


As xcolor is loaded by LyX I just add something like

\definecolor{MyBlue}{HTML}{40}
\definecolor{Firebrick4}{HTML}{8b1a1a}

to my preamble

[...]


So, yes LyX/Beamer worked, but only after I spent many hours learning
about an xcolor package to get the shade I wanted and troubleshooting
errors.  As you can imagine, I could tell many other stories with
similar processes and outcomes.


https://www.google.com/search?q=xcolor+site%3A.lyx.org

shows 51 hits (on *.lyx.org), and after 30 years with LaTeX (and 15
with lyx) looking for stuff has become second nature.

It seems you have an aversion towards RTFM :-)-O, even though one only
needs to do this once.  I must say, even in (not so deep) Africa we have
Internet speed which allows me to look stuff up on the web as fast as in
the online help.


[...]

The difference -- for me at least -- is that, with LO, I can usually
track down errors and solve problems from within the program itself
without having to resort to extensive other documentation or online
StackExchange threads.

[...]


And, in case someone is interested I attach the template I use if I have
to write something for our weekly Continuing Professional Development/
Continuing Medical Education sessions.

In the preamble I include the multimedia package because sometimes I
like to play videos from within the PDF :-)-O, scrdate because I like
the \ISOToday (-MM-DD), as I wrote earlier I like a modified
metropolis theme, the NOTO fonts (need to be added late in the preamble,
never bothered to figure out why :-)-O), mess a bit around with the
formatting and font family, put a Draft/Date into the background and
make provision for handouts which are commented out.

I add

17pt, xcolor=svgnames,aspectratio=1610

to Document --> Document Class --> Custom: because I like it big, am
used to svgnames rather than dvipsnames and I in particular like the
aspect ration change to that I get more real estate on the screen.

greetings, el









cpdtemplate.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
#LyX 2.3 created this file. For more info see http://www.lyx.org/
\lyxformat 544
\begin_document
\begin_header
\save_transient_properties true
\origin unavailable
\textclass beamer
\begin_preamble
\usepackage{multimedia}
%
% General
%
\usepackage{scrdate}
% very dark blue
%
\definecolor{MyBlue}{HTML}{40}
\definecolor{MyRed}{HTML}{8b1a1a}
%
% Metropolis
%

\useoutertheme[%
   progressbar=foot,
   numbering=none
]{metropolis} 

\useinnertheme[%
   sectionpage=progressbar
]{metropolis}


\usecolortheme{metropolis-highcontrast}

\usefonttheme[%
   titleformat title=smallcaps, 
   titleformat subtitle=smallcaps, 
   titleformat section=smallcaps, 
   titleformat frame=smallcaps,
]{metropolis}

\makeatletter
\setlength{\metropolis@titleseparator@linewidth}{1pt}
\setlength{\metropolis@progressonsectionpage@linewidth}{1pt}
\setlength{\metropolis@progressinheadfoot@linewidth}{2pt}
\makeatother

%
% chnage font, after last metropolis entry
%
\usepackage[medium]{noto}


% Theme colors are derived from these two elements
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=}

\setbeamercolor{alerted text}{fg=MyRed}
\setbeamercolor{progress bar}{fg=MyRed}

\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{bg=MyBlue, fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{title separator}{fg=MyBlue, bg=white}
\setbeamercolor{title}{fg=MyBlue, bg=white}
\setbeamercolor{subtitle}{fg=MyBlue, bg=white}
\setbeamercolor{institute}{fg=MyBlue, bg=white}
\setbeamercolor{author}{fg=MyBlue, bg=white}
\setbeamercolor{date}{fg=MyBlue, bg=white}

\setbeamersize{text margin left=0.5cm}
\setbeamersize{text margin right=0.5cm}


\setbeamerfont{section title}{family=\rmfamily}
\setbeamerfont{subsection title}{family=\rmfamily}
\setbeamerfont{frametitle}{family=\rmfamily}
\setbeamerfont{title}{family=\rmfamily}

\setbeamerfont*{description item}{series=\bfseries,family=\sffamily} 

\setbeamertemplate{section in toc}[sections numbered]

\usepackage[anythingbreaks]{breakurl}
\Urlmuskip=0mu plus 1mu


\usepackage{background}
\backgroundsetup{%
color=gray, 
contents={Draft, \ISOToday}, 
opacity=0.3, 
placement=center, 
angle=25, 
scale=2
}

RE: LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On October 4, Charlie wrote:

> However, if I read this correctly Beamer is fine, even good.
> However, your problem stated above, seems to be that you have to
> do a lot of searching, reading and learning to get it to do
> more than what is standard and easy?

> Isn't that what you have to do if you want any system or program to
> work the way you want? Isn't that what FOSS is all about?

Yes and no.

Yes, any system requires searching, reading and learning to get it to do more 
than what is standard and easy.

No, not all systems are alike in this regard. It's all about degrees, and in my 
experience, LibreOffice makes learning new things much easier than LyX/LaTeX. 
Generally speaking, every LO function can be found by exploring its extensive 
menus and/or toolbars. Like a multiple choice test, the right answer is 
somewhere on the page, and such exploration is generally how I learn new things 
in LO. I just search the menu structure until I find what I need. But, because 
LaTeX is such an extensive system with so many different ways of doing things, 
it would be next to impossible for LyX to contain a graphical menu option for 
every LaTeX function. To be sure, it is much better than it was ten years ago, 
but there are still many, many functions for which LyX itself provides no 
guidance. Let me give a recent real life example. This example will reveal as 
much about my obsessive tendencies as it does about the two systems.

Unlike our good Dr. E.L., I can't leave my slide designs alone. I am constantly 
changing them to make them better and to give my audiences (college students 
and church congregants) something fresh to look at. One way I do this is by 
highlighting important words with various colors. I like my headings to appear 
in a deep blue color. It's classy and gives enough color without glaring on the 
screen. In HTML, I would code my CSS with "color:Navy;" to get the shade I want.

In LibreOffice, I can obtain this shade by highlighting my text and then 
clicking on the text color icon in my text formatting toolbar. That gives me a 
drop down selection of several color palettes. I select the HTML palette and 
click on "Navy" to get the dark blue that I want. It takes about five seconds 
from start to finish; in fact, it takes much longer to describe in writing than 
to actually do.

I tried to do the same thing in LyX. I selected my text and clicked on the text 
formatting icon on the toolbar. Clicking on "color" gave me a drop down list of 
19 different colors. The only shade of blue available is much too bright for my 
tastes. I obviously needed to gain access to a larger palette of shades of 
blue. Nothing in this area of LyX's graphical interface gave me any clue as to 
how to do that, so to the Internet I went.

After much searching online, I learned about the LaTeX \xcolor package, which 
provides access to many, many more colors. Just what I needed. I also learned 
about the [dvipsnames] option, which allows the user to use common color names 
rather than having to type in cryptic color codes. Following the suggestions I 
found online, I dutifully typed in "\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}" into my 
preamble. I could then use LaTeX code to color my words with 
\textcolor{Blue}{colored text} (The uppercase "B" produces a deeper shade than 
the standard "blue"). I then hit Ctrl-R to compile my slides and was met with a 
LaTeX error of "Option clash for package xcolor." Say, what!?

I checked my preamble searching for typos. Nope, everything was perfect. So, I 
kept searching the Internet and learned that the xcolor package is apparently 
already included in Beamer (which is a good thing), but without the 
[dvipsnames] option (which is a bad thing.) By including 
"\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}" in my preamble, I was redundantly calling the 
same package, but with an inconsistent option.

Back to the Internet. After more searching, I learned to *not* put the xcolor 
package in the preamble, but to instead include the "dvipsnames" option in the 
\documentclass declaration. With this, I could finally color my text the deeper 
blue that I wanted. Unlike the case with LibreOffice, it took much more time to 
do than to describe in this email. Fortunately, I am semi-retired and have the 
time to devote to LaTeX education.

So, yes LyX/Beamer worked, but only after I spent many hours learning about an 
xcolor package to get the shade I wanted and troubleshooting errors. As you can 
imagine, I could tell many other stories with similar processes and outcomes.

Now, to be fair to LyX, with LO, I have often spent hours chasing down why 
editing a master slide only affects 2/3s of my slides, requiring me to manually 
reformat the other slides. The difference -- for me at least -- is that, with 
LO, I can usually track down errors and solve problems from within the program 
itself without having to resort to extensive other documentation or online 
StackExchange threads.

Virgil

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Charlie]

Virgil Arrington informed me regarding: RE: LibreOffice to LyX
on Mon, 4 Oct 2021 12:55:34 +

> But, I usually find myself getting very frustrated when I want to
> change some design detail. It often requires a Google search to learn
> the right LaTeX command to achieve the change I want. After spending
> hours trying to achieve a certain result and editing preamble and/or
> LaTeX code, I often find I just give up and move it all to LO Impress
> just to get the job done.

Replied thus:

Than you for that. 

However, if I read this correctly Beamer is fine, even good.
However, your problem stated above, seems to be that you have to
do a lot of searching, reading and learning to get it to do
more than what is standard and easy?

Isn't that what you have to do if you want any system or program to
work the way you want? Isn't that what FOSS is all about?

Just a thought, no more.

Charlie

East Gippsland Wildlife Rehabilitators Inc..
   http://www.egwildlife.com.au/

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Steve,

I do all my slides in Beamer.  I have settled on a modified metropolis
theme and that works very well and I haven't changed that in years
years.

I am a fan of 10-20-20 and bullet points and do my tables and graphs
usually with knitR.

If you have a clean pandoc template you can generate LaTeX from
Markdown which translates into LyX without ERT. Perhaps a little perl
massaging of the text.

And you can dicate Markdown.

el

On 2021-10-04 19:23 , Steve Litt wrote:
[...]

Speaking of Markdown (in general), in theory I have a process stack
that can add custom styles to Markdown (or Asciidoc if the programs are
written differently). This brings the real possibility of writing
fairly simple books in Markdown, which would be fast as a bat out of
hell.

If there's a markdown to slide conversion, my stack could also be used
to create slides with styles.

In theory, I think Beamer is best for slides, but sometimes Beamer can
get difficult.

[...]

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Steve Litt]

Virgil Arrington said on Mon, 4 Oct 2021 12:55:34 +


>On the flip side, I have had to learn that LO Impress doesn’t like
>having slide formats changed *after* the presentation substance has
>been composed. While my styles haven’t suddenly changed on me, I have
>learned that changes made to Impress master slides do not always get
>to all slides in a presentation. Through painful experience, I have
>learned that, if I ever make any direct changes to a particular
>slide’s format, it seems to disassociate that slide from the master
>slide. So, after hours of composing and wrestling with Impress’s
>master slides trying to get it all to behave, I find I often just give
>up and move it all to LyX/Beamer just to get the job done.

Yes, I seem to remember that part of my problem was different styles
had different appearances on different slides, which is bizarre,
because the entire purpose of styles is to keep appearances consistent
throughout the whole document.

>
>And in those cases where my slide design needs are particularly
>simple, I run to Rstudio and Slidy to create a quick and dirty (and
>well behaved) slide presentation.

I'll check out Rstudio and Slidy. Thanks!

[snip]

> Sometimes it’s LyX, sometimes it’s LibreOffice and sometimes
>it’s RMarkdown.

Speaking of Markdown (in general), in theory I have a process stack
that can add custom styles to Markdown (or Asciidoc if the programs are
written differently). This brings the real possibility of writing
fairly simple books in Markdown, which would be fast as a bat out of
hell.

If there's a markdown to slide conversion, my stack could also be used
to create slides with styles.

In theory, I think Beamer is best for slides, but sometimes Beamer can
get difficult.


SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Mon, Oct 04, 2021 at 12:55:34PM +, Virgil Arrington wrote:
> On October 3, Steve Litt (on the LyX User 
> List) wrote:
> 
> > Several times, on long wordprocessing documents, I personally have had
> > LibreOffice writer styles spontaneously change. At one point my
> > personal problem with LibreOffice style prevented me from converting a
> > 300 page doc made in MS Word to LibreOffice. The import went just fine,
> > but the styles kept changing, and keeping them all intact was like
> > playing whack-a-mole.
> 
> > I had an even worse personal failure involving changing styles in
> > LibreOffice's Impress, which contained the 90+ slide presentation I
> > license to companies for their internal Universal Troubleshooting
> > Process course, that now I need to rewrite the entire thing in Beamer.
> 
> At the risk of joining in a flame war, I feel a need to share my experiences 
> with LyX and LibreOffice. As I am on both LyX’s and LibreOffice’s user lists, 
> I am posting this message to both lists.
> 
> I have used both LyX and LibreOffice for decades, the former going back to 
> version 1.4 and the latter going back to its origins as StarOffice and later 
> as OpenOffice.org. Over the years I have found myself having a love/hate 
> relationship with both. I have had to learn that each has its own way of 
> working, and when I try to make either work like the other, I run into 
> problems.
> 
> My current work is primarily with slide presentations, and I bounce back and 
> forth between LyX/Beamer and LO Impress (as well as 
> RMarkdown/Slidy/Ioslides). I have found that with LyX, I can very happily 
> change formatting after composing my content and, so long as I am satisfied 
> with Beamer’s slide designs and themes, it works very well. But, I usually 
> find myself getting very frustrated when I want to change some design detail. 
> It often requires a Google search to learn the right LaTeX command to achieve 
> the change I want. After spending hours trying to achieve a certain result 
> and editing preamble and/or LaTeX code, I often find I just give up and move 
> it all to LO Impress just to get the job done.
> 
> On the flip side, I have had to learn that LO Impress doesn’t like having 
> slide formats changed *after* the presentation substance has been composed. 
> While my styles haven’t suddenly changed on me, I have learned that changes 
> made to Impress master slides do not always get to all slides in a 
> presentation. Through painful experience, I have learned that, if I ever make 
> any direct changes to a particular slide’s format, it seems to disassociate 
> that slide from the master slide. So, after hours of composing and wrestling 
> with Impress’s master slides trying to get it all to behave, I find I often 
> just give up and move it all to LyX/Beamer just to get the job done.
> 
> And in those cases where my slide design needs are particularly simple, I run 
> to Rstudio and Slidy to create a quick and dirty (and well behaved) slide 
> presentation.
> 
> And, so I bounce back and forth between the programs using the one that will 
> let me get the job done efficiently. I find they all require considerable 
> commitment of time and effort to achieve the desired results. Each has some 
> feature I find maddening and each has some feature I find indispensable. In 
> short, despite my obsessive search for the perfect document processing 
> system, I have learned it doesn’t exist. I will continue to use whatever tool 
> best meets the need at hand. Sometimes it’s LyX, sometimes it’s LibreOffice 
> and sometimes it’s
> RMarkdown.

Thanks for this helpful comparison, Virgil! It was interesting for me to read 
about your experience and workflow.

I'm happy to have both LyX and LO and I'm very thankful to all of the 
developers giving their free time for these open source programs!

Scott


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RE: LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On October 3, Steve Litt (on the LyX User 
List) wrote:

> Several times, on long wordprocessing documents, I personally have had
> LibreOffice writer styles spontaneously change. At one point my
> personal problem with LibreOffice style prevented me from converting a
> 300 page doc made in MS Word to LibreOffice. The import went just fine,
> but the styles kept changing, and keeping them all intact was like
> playing whack-a-mole.

> I had an even worse personal failure involving changing styles in
> LibreOffice's Impress, which contained the 90+ slide presentation I
> license to companies for their internal Universal Troubleshooting
> Process course, that now I need to rewrite the entire thing in Beamer.

At the risk of joining in a flame war, I feel a need to share my experiences 
with LyX and LibreOffice. As I am on both LyX’s and LibreOffice’s user lists, I 
am posting this message to both lists.

I have used both LyX and LibreOffice for decades, the former going back to 
version 1.4 and the latter going back to its origins as StarOffice and later as 
OpenOffice.org. Over the years I have found myself having a love/hate 
relationship with both. I have had to learn that each has its own way of 
working, and when I try to make either work like the other, I run into problems.

My current work is primarily with slide presentations, and I bounce back and 
forth between LyX/Beamer and LO Impress (as well as RMarkdown/Slidy/Ioslides). 
I have found that with LyX, I can very happily change formatting after 
composing my content and, so long as I am satisfied with Beamer’s slide designs 
and themes, it works very well. But, I usually find myself getting very 
frustrated when I want to change some design detail. It often requires a Google 
search to learn the right LaTeX command to achieve the change I want. After 
spending hours trying to achieve a certain result and editing preamble and/or 
LaTeX code, I often find I just give up and move it all to LO Impress just to 
get the job done.

On the flip side, I have had to learn that LO Impress doesn’t like having slide 
formats changed *after* the presentation substance has been composed. While my 
styles haven’t suddenly changed on me, I have learned that changes made to 
Impress master slides do not always get to all slides in a presentation. 
Through painful experience, I have learned that, if I ever make any direct 
changes to a particular slide’s format, it seems to disassociate that slide 
from the master slide. So, after hours of composing and wrestling with 
Impress’s master slides trying to get it all to behave, I find I often just 
give up and move it all to LyX/Beamer just to get the job done.

And in those cases where my slide design needs are particularly simple, I run 
to Rstudio and Slidy to create a quick and dirty (and well behaved) slide 
presentation.

And, so I bounce back and forth between the programs using the one that will 
let me get the job done efficiently. I find they all require considerable 
commitment of time and effort to achieve the desired results. Each has some 
feature I find maddening and each has some feature I find indispensable. In 
short, despite my obsessive search for the perfect document processing system, 
I have learned it doesn’t exist. I will continue to use whatever tool best 
meets the need at hand. Sometimes it’s LyX, sometimes it’s LibreOffice and 
sometimes it’s
RMarkdown.

Virgil
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

It would probably easier to translate from LyX/LaTeX to
LibreOffice/Word/RTF, but I have no idea (and of course no interest
whatsoever) to find out (how to template the front page and page
numbering.

But, it is probably not worth the effort to even try :-)-O there must
be gazillions of ugly Word templates out there :-)-O

I like to keep all my referrals and reports (of referrals) to one page,
if it is at all possible :-)-O


el

On 04/10/2021 02:53, John White wrote:


We do everything in lyx, even one page letters, except that some
courts require that submitted orders be in doc format (in case the
judge wants to edit).  For those docs we use libreoffice.

John

[...]

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

This list should be kept free from responses such as the one below
because for many people they just do not care.  Abstain from trying to
continue stupid flame wars.

el



On 01/10/2021 19:07, Tobias Hilbricht wrote:

Am Donnerstag, den 30.09.2021, 21:38 -0400 schrieb Steve Litt:

[...]


This list should be kept free from remarks such as the one above,
because for many people it is just not true.  Abstain from trying to
ignite stupid flame wars.

Tobias
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[John White]

We do everything in lyx, even one page letters, except that some courts require 
that 
submitted orders be in doc format (in case the judge wants to edit).  For those 
docs we 
use libreoffice.

John



On Sunday, October 3, 2021 3:31:47 PM PDT Steve Litt wrote:
> Tobias Hilbricht said on Fri, 01 Oct 2021 19:07:02 +0200
> 
> >Am Donnerstag, den 30.09.2021, 21:38 -0400 schrieb Steve Litt:
> >> converting to LyX, the answer is don't. LibreOffice is a bug ridden
> >> program that tries to be all things to all people and fails
> >> miserably.
> >> You need a 170 IQ and a doctorate to be able to deal with the quirky,
> >> often disappearing or changing styles in LibreOffice.
> >
> >This list should be kept free from remarks such as the one above,
> >because for many people it is just not true. Abstain from trying to
> >ignite stupid flame wars.
> 
> I'm sorry I offended you, Tobias, and thank you for letting me know the
> LyX list is an NLZ (No Laughing Zone) and an NHZ (No Hyperbole Zone),
> and that disappearing or automodifying styles in LibreOffice are my
> personal problem. So allow me to rephrase...
> 
> Several times, on long wordprocessing documents, I personally have had
> LibreOffice writer styles spontaneously change. At one point my
> personal problem with LibreOffice style prevented me from converting a
> 300 page doc made in MS Word to LibreOffice. The import went just fine,
> but the styles kept changing, and keeping them all intact was like
> playing whack-a-mole.
> 
> I had an even worse personal failure involving changing styles in
> LibreOffice's Impress, which contained the 90+ slide presentation I
> license to companies for their internal Universal Troubleshooting
> Process course, that now I need to rewrite the entire thing in Beamer.
> 
> So, based on my personal problems, my advice remains the same: If your
> document exceeds a couple thousand words, I'd recommend LyX over
> LibreOffice Writer, and if your presentation file exceeds four pages,
> I'd recommend Beamer over LibreOffice Impress.
> 
> Hopefully, by posting this clarification, I've avoided the flame war
> you were concerned with.
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt
> Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Steve Litt]

Tobias Hilbricht said on Fri, 01 Oct 2021 19:07:02 +0200

>Am Donnerstag, den 30.09.2021, 21:38 -0400 schrieb Steve Litt:
>> 
>> converting to LyX, the answer is don't. LibreOffice is a bug ridden
>> program that tries to be all things to all people and fails
>> miserably.
>> You need a 170 IQ and a doctorate to be able to deal with the quirky,
>> often disappearing or changing styles in LibreOffice.
>>   
>This list should be kept free from remarks such as the one above,
>because for many people it is just not true. Abstain from trying to
>ignite stupid flame wars.

I'm sorry I offended you, Tobias, and thank you for letting me know the
LyX list is an NLZ (No Laughing Zone) and an NHZ (No Hyperbole Zone),
and that disappearing or automodifying styles in LibreOffice are my
personal problem. So allow me to rephrase...

Several times, on long wordprocessing documents, I personally have had
LibreOffice writer styles spontaneously change. At one point my
personal problem with LibreOffice style prevented me from converting a
300 page doc made in MS Word to LibreOffice. The import went just fine,
but the styles kept changing, and keeping them all intact was like
playing whack-a-mole.

I had an even worse personal failure involving changing styles in
LibreOffice's Impress, which contained the 90+ slide presentation I
license to companies for their internal Universal Troubleshooting
Process course, that now I need to rewrite the entire thing in Beamer.

So, based on my personal problems, my advice remains the same: If your
document exceeds a couple thousand words, I'd recommend LyX over
LibreOffice Writer, and if your presentation file exceeds four pages,
I'd recommend Beamer over LibreOffice Impress.

Hopefully, by posting this clarification, I've avoided the flame war
you were concerned with.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Tobias Hilbricht]

Am Donnerstag, den 30.09.2021, 21:38 -0400 schrieb Steve Litt:
> 
> converting to LyX, the answer is don't. LibreOffice is a bug ridden
> program that tries to be all things to all people and fails
> miserably.
> You need a 170 IQ and a doctorate to be able to deal with the quirky,
> often disappearing or changing styles in LibreOffice.
> 
This list should be kept free from remarks such as the one above,
because for many people it is just not true. Abstain from trying to
ignite stupid flame wars.

Tobias

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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

To go into even more detail:

Look on CTAN for letterhead templates, of which they are galore.

Then refine to those that do this in KomaScript and find one that is as
close to your ideas as possible.

This (probably a letter class options file *.LCO, the name of which you
then add to LyX's Settings -> Document Class -> Custom:) you will have
to then adapt or find someone to do it for you.

That is indeed an effort, but it only needs to be done once, and the
results can be awesome :-)-O

el

On 01/10/2021 03:38, Steve Litt wrote:

Osman Kemal Kadiroğlu said on Thu, 30 Sep 2021 08:21:46 +


Hi,

I am a bit inexperienced LyX user. I have a letter format with a
header and a graphical signature created with LibreOffice. How can I
convert it to a LyX letter template?

Best regards

Osman Kemal Kadiroğlu


If you're asking as a one-off, one time thing, just copy and paste
everything into LyX's letter writing facility. Treat the graphic as you
would treat any other graphic within LyX.

If you're asking because you want to keep using LibreOffice and
converting to LyX, the answer is don't. LibreOffice is a bug ridden
program that tries to be all things to all people and fails miserably.
You need a 170 IQ and a doctorate to be able to deal with the quirky,
often disappearing or changing styles in LibreOffice.

If a letter is short enough, informal enough, and not of vital value,
and you want to author it in LibreOffice, just print it from
LibreOffice. LibreOffice is a great quick and dirty for anything below
1000 words. If there's any chance a document will grow beyond 1000
words, use LyX or some other genuine authoring environment right from
the start.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques



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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Steve Litt]

Osman Kemal Kadiroğlu said on Thu, 30 Sep 2021 08:21:46 +

>Hi,
>
>I am a bit inexperienced LyX user. I have a letter format with a
>header and a graphical signature created with LibreOffice. How can I
>convert it to a LyX letter template?
>
>Best regards
>
>Osman Kemal Kadiroğlu

If you're asking as a one-off, one time thing, just copy and paste
everything into LyX's letter writing facility. Treat the graphic as you
would treat any other graphic within LyX.

If you're asking because you want to keep using LibreOffice and
converting to LyX, the answer is don't. LibreOffice is a bug ridden
program that tries to be all things to all people and fails miserably.
You need a 170 IQ and a doctorate to be able to deal with the quirky,
often disappearing or changing styles in LibreOffice.

If a letter is short enough, informal enough, and not of vital value,
and you want to author it in LibreOffice, just print it from
LibreOffice. LibreOffice is a great quick and dirty for anything below
1000 words. If there's any chance a document will grow beyond 1000
words, use LyX or some other genuine authoring environment right from
the start.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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Re: LibreOffice to LyX

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

You can't.

Ad you should not :-)-O

You need to create the header manually with KomaScript, which has a
gazillion possibilities, and then you can save the signature image and
add that image to the signature field.

el


On 30/09/2021 10:21, Osman Kemal Kadiroğlu wrote:

Hi,

I am a bit inexperienced LyX user.  I have a letter format with a
header and a graphical signature created with LibreOffice.  How can I
convert it to a LyX letter template?

Best regards

Osman Kemal Kadiroğlu

Sent with ProtonMail  Secure Email.




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