Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread Anthony Campbell
On 20 Feb 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
 On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:
  I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
  1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.
 
 Anthony,
 
 What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they 
 published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? 
 Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?
 
 What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, 
 and 
 in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give 
 others who write books using LyX?
 
 If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier 
 for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.

[snip] 

The three books I have out at present are described on my website:
Homeopathy in Perspective, The Assassins of Alamut, Totality Beliefs and
the Religious Imagination. I had been using Latex for a long time before
this, including for book writing, and an reasonably au fait with it,
though far from an expert. I still write letters and shorter stuff in
Latex since I have the templates ready. I started using Lyx as an
experiment because I was finding it difficult and time-consuming to
include pictures in the text with wrap-around using Latex. 

I'm now fully persuaded of the value of Lyx for books. I would not say
there have been any major problems, apart from some issues with
including the Preface in the TOC and things like that. This list is
extremely useful and helpful in sorting them out. My policy generally is
Keep it Simple, so I mostly accept the defaults in the Book Class and
don't try to be clever.

What I particularly value in Lyx is the ability to make footnotes
easily. I regret the demise of the footnote in printed books and it's a
delight to be able to have as many as I like at the touch of a button.
Aother thing I like is that I can get an instantaneous preview of a page
which shows me exactly how it will look in the book. Making the index is
also easy.

As regards my method of working, I don't generally compose the text
directly in Lyx. I write in vim (gvim) which I'm used to and which
allows me to make large-scale changes quickly and easily. When I've got
the text more or less as I want it, I then import it into Lyx and carry
on from there.

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews, 
and sceptical articles)



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread Abdelrazak Younes

On 21/02/2009 09:53, Anthony Campbell wrote:

On 20 Feb 2009, Steve Litt wrote:

On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:

I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.

Anthony,

What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they
published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization?
Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?

What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and
in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give
others who write books using LyX?

If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier
for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.


[snip]

The three books I have out at present are described on my website:
Homeopathy in Perspective, The Assassins of Alamut,


off topic/
I've skimmed over the summary, looks very interesting. There's another 
famous book that talk about this sect: Samarcand by Hamid Malouf.
This book is a romanced biography of Omar Khayam, the most famous arabic 
poet. As far from I remember from this excellent book, the word 
Assassin come from Assass Iyoun i.e. the fidels of Iyoun, or 
something like that. This book is a must read :-)

off topic/

Abdel.



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
1. I've seen your web site, Steve, and I must say it's a remarkable
body of work and a great resource!

2. I think I'm going to be closer to Rich in the ebooks I write. I'll
take the defaults whenever possible. I do a lot with the
latex-beamer package, but I also use the R - LyX Sweave interface.
But you do need to know LaTeX to figure out what's broken when you do
a view PDF and get a cryptic error message out of pdftex.
Fortunately, LyX gives you a blue highlight close to where the
problem is.

3. I do find LyX / latex-beamer frustrating, though. Till Tantau, who
wrote latex-beamer and also the pgf / tkiz tool set, has made some
absolutely stunning lecture notes with these tools. But I can't for
the life of me figure out how to make my own presentations that
beautiful, even though I've read the manuals and looked at the code.
In any event, the tools *are* there.

4. There are instructions in the LyX documentation on how to do a
modular document by including sub-documents. The projects I've done
so far haven't needed that, but I'm starting a big one that will need
that.
-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
http://www.linkedin.com/in/edborasky

I've never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.


Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread Anthony Campbell
On 20 Feb 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
 On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:
  I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
  1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.
 
 Anthony,
 
 What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they 
 published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? 
 Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?
 
 What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, 
 and 
 in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give 
 others who write books using LyX?
 
 If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier 
 for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.

[snip] 

The three books I have out at present are described on my website:
Homeopathy in Perspective, The Assassins of Alamut, Totality Beliefs and
the Religious Imagination. I had been using Latex for a long time before
this, including for book writing, and an reasonably au fait with it,
though far from an expert. I still write letters and shorter stuff in
Latex since I have the templates ready. I started using Lyx as an
experiment because I was finding it difficult and time-consuming to
include pictures in the text with wrap-around using Latex. 

I'm now fully persuaded of the value of Lyx for books. I would not say
there have been any major problems, apart from some issues with
including the Preface in the TOC and things like that. This list is
extremely useful and helpful in sorting them out. My policy generally is
Keep it Simple, so I mostly accept the defaults in the Book Class and
don't try to be clever.

What I particularly value in Lyx is the ability to make footnotes
easily. I regret the demise of the footnote in printed books and it's a
delight to be able to have as many as I like at the touch of a button.
Aother thing I like is that I can get an instantaneous preview of a page
which shows me exactly how it will look in the book. Making the index is
also easy.

As regards my method of working, I don't generally compose the text
directly in Lyx. I write in vim (gvim) which I'm used to and which
allows me to make large-scale changes quickly and easily. When I've got
the text more or less as I want it, I then import it into Lyx and carry
on from there.

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews, 
and sceptical articles)



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread Abdelrazak Younes

On 21/02/2009 09:53, Anthony Campbell wrote:

On 20 Feb 2009, Steve Litt wrote:

On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:

I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.

Anthony,

What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they
published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization?
Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?

What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and
in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give
others who write books using LyX?

If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier
for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.


[snip]

The three books I have out at present are described on my website:
Homeopathy in Perspective, The Assassins of Alamut,


off topic/
I've skimmed over the summary, looks very interesting. There's another 
famous book that talk about this sect: Samarcand by Hamid Malouf.
This book is a romanced biography of Omar Khayam, the most famous arabic 
poet. As far from I remember from this excellent book, the word 
Assassin come from Assass Iyoun i.e. the fidels of Iyoun, or 
something like that. This book is a must read :-)

off topic/

Abdel.



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
1. I've seen your web site, Steve, and I must say it's a remarkable
body of work and a great resource!

2. I think I'm going to be closer to Rich in the ebooks I write. I'll
take the defaults whenever possible. I do a lot with the
latex-beamer package, but I also use the R - LyX Sweave interface.
But you do need to know LaTeX to figure out what's broken when you do
a view PDF and get a cryptic error message out of pdftex.
Fortunately, LyX gives you a blue highlight close to where the
problem is.

3. I do find LyX / latex-beamer frustrating, though. Till Tantau, who
wrote latex-beamer and also the pgf / tkiz tool set, has made some
absolutely stunning lecture notes with these tools. But I can't for
the life of me figure out how to make my own presentations that
beautiful, even though I've read the manuals and looked at the code.
In any event, the tools *are* there.

4. There are instructions in the LyX documentation on how to do a
modular document by including sub-documents. The projects I've done
so far haven't needed that, but I'm starting a big one that will need
that.
-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
http://www.linkedin.com/in/edborasky

I've never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.


Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread Anthony Campbell
On 20 Feb 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:
> > I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
> > 1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.
> 
> Anthony,
> 
> What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they 
> published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? 
> Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?
> 
> What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, 
> and 
> in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give 
> others who write books using LyX?
> 
> If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier 
> for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.

[snip] 

The three books I have out at present are described on my website:
Homeopathy in Perspective, The Assassins of Alamut, Totality Beliefs and
the Religious Imagination. I had been using Latex for a long time before
this, including for book writing, and an reasonably au fait with it,
though far from an expert. I still write letters and shorter stuff in
Latex since I have the templates ready. I started using Lyx as an
experiment because I was finding it difficult and time-consuming to
include pictures in the text with wrap-around using Latex. 

I'm now fully persuaded of the value of Lyx for books. I would not say
there have been any major problems, apart from some issues with
including the Preface in the TOC and things like that. This list is
extremely useful and helpful in sorting them out. My policy generally is
Keep it Simple, so I mostly accept the defaults in the Book Class and
don't try to be clever.

What I particularly value in Lyx is the ability to make footnotes
easily. I regret the demise of the footnote in printed books and it's a
delight to be able to have as many as I like at the touch of a button.
Aother thing I like is that I can get an instantaneous preview of a page
which shows me exactly how it will look in the book. Making the index is
also easy.

As regards my method of working, I don't generally compose the text
directly in Lyx. I write in vim (gvim) which I'm used to and which
allows me to make large-scale changes quickly and easily. When I've got
the text more or less as I want it, I then import it into Lyx and carry
on from there.

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews, 
and sceptical articles)



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread Abdelrazak Younes

On 21/02/2009 09:53, Anthony Campbell wrote:

On 20 Feb 2009, Steve Litt wrote:

On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:

I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.

Anthony,

What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they
published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization?
Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?

What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and
in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give
others who write books using LyX?

If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier
for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.


[snip]

The three books I have out at present are described on my website:
Homeopathy in Perspective, The Assassins of Alamut,



I've skimmed over the summary, looks very interesting. There's another 
famous book that talk about this sect: "Samarcand" by Hamid Malouf.
This book is a romanced biography of Omar Khayam, the most famous arabic 
poet. As far from I remember from this excellent book, the word 
"Assassin" come from "Assass Iyoun" i.e. the fidels of Iyoun, or 
something like that. This book is a must read :-)



Abdel.



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-21 Thread M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
1. I've seen your web site, Steve, and I must say it's a remarkable
body of work and a great resource!

2. I think I'm going to be closer to Rich in the ebooks I write. I'll
take the defaults whenever possible. I do a lot with the
"latex-beamer" package, but I also use the R - LyX "Sweave" interface.
But you do need to know LaTeX to figure out what's broken when you do
a "view PDF" and get a cryptic error message out of "pdftex".
Fortunately, LyX gives you a blue highlight "close" to where the
problem is.

3. I do find LyX / latex-beamer frustrating, though. Till Tantau, who
wrote "latex-beamer" and also the "pgf / tkiz" tool set, has made some
absolutely stunning lecture notes with these tools. But I can't for
the life of me figure out how to make my own presentations that
beautiful, even though I've read the manuals and looked at the code.
In any event, the tools *are* there.

4. There are instructions in the LyX documentation on how to do a
"modular" document by including sub-documents. The projects I've done
so far haven't needed that, but I'm starting a big one that will need
that.
-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
http://www.linkedin.com/in/edborasky

I've never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.


Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Steve Litt
On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:
 I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
 1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.

Anthony,

What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they 
published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? 
Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?

What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and 
in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give 
others who write books using LyX?

If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier 
for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.

Below are my answers to those same questions:

Here are the books I've written in LyX:

* Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/ttech.htm)
* The Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm)
* Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/28tales.htm)
* Troubleshooting: Just the Facts 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/tsjustfacts.htm)
* Learn Vim Tonight (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/vimtonight.htm)
* Rapid Learning for the 21st Century 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/rl21.htm)


The first two are print books, the remaining four are Ebooks. The first one 
was a HUGE challenge because it was written in 2001, before LyX had character 
styles, but I used Dekl Tsur's color workaround to simulate character styles. 
Also, the first and second ones were challenging because I didn't have a clue 
about LaTeX, but I wanted my books to look a certain way. Once again, the LyX 
email list people helped me through to get them looking how I wanted.

If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd 
advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

Upon reading that document, I see I have more work to do in that document 
defining terms, but I still think it's the best place to start learning 
LaTeX. Next are things like latex2e.dvi and lshort.dvi (both should be 
findable either in your distro or on the Internet), as well as Lamport's book 
and the other LaTeX books.

If done right, learning LaTeX isn't that bad, and knowing LaTeX has allowed me 
to customize my books' appearances exactly how I wanted them.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Konrad Hofbauer

Steve Litt wrote:
If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX.


I've seen people doing full PhD theses in LyX without the slightest clue 
of latex. Depends all on the field you are in and your requirements.


But as you say,  knowing latex is certainly needed for very advanced 
stuff and tricky customizations.


In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX


Disagreed - I'd say I know my way around in Latex pretty ok, without 
having ever looked at plain TeX. In fact, it is officially discouraged 
to use low-level TeX constructs and macros in LaTeX.


If I'd have to give an advice to a book author who wants to customize 
things: look (in this order) at the LyX manuals, the koma-script or 
memoir manual, and, when needed, the tex-faq.


Just my 2 cents,
Konrad



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread David Hewitt
Steve Litt sl...@... writes:
 If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
 you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
 STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd 
 advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this:
 
 http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

I tend to agree with Konrad. I happily wrote my dissertation in LyX and only
stumbled into LaTeX on an as-needed basis, primarily using the Koma-script
documentation, package documentation at CTAN, and the LyX mailing list. I quite
frankly don't even know the difference between LaTeX and TeX. But, maybe I
SHOULD have looked at Steve's book... will do so now.




Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Rich Shepard

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009, David Hewitt wrote:


I tend to agree with Konrad. I happily wrote my dissertation in LyX and
only stumbled into LaTeX on an as-needed basis, primarily using the
Koma-script documentation, package documentation at CTAN, and the LyX
mailing list. I quite frankly don't even know the difference between LaTeX
and TeX. But, maybe I SHOULD have looked at Steve's book... will do so
now.


  My book was published by Springer-Verlag and used their svmono LaTeX
class. They have a TeXpert on staff (who had me change all \textellipsis to
\ldots; a _very_ subtle difference, but that's their standard). While I've
looked recently and briefly at The TeXbook, I found the most valuable
references were The LaTeX Companion (2nd Ed.), The LaTeX Graphics Companion
(the 2nd Ed. wasn't out then), and Guide to LaTeX (4th Ed.).

  A lot depends on how we approach our writing. I use LyX for almost all my
writing, and I accept the default classes and layouts because they were
designed by folks much more knowledgeable than I about typography, page
layout, and graphic design. Therefore, I don't futz with minor eye-candy
(IMNSHO) or other tweaks. Steve and I differ greatly on our philosophy. He
wants to design every aspect of his books, down to the character level. I
want to have great looking typeset output but I will spend my time on the
content and accept the default appearance. You pays you money, and you takes
you choice.

  However, I learned LaTeX so I could use it to produce forms that can be
read by our Optical Mark Reader (OMR) and do other fancy stuff, and after
looking (and using) at about a half-dozen different vector graphic drawing
tools, I finally settled on PSTricks for all that I do. My visuals for
presentations are done using the beamer class in LyX.

  If you're writing a book or monograph, I recommend picking a style/class
(such as memoir), making a decision about headings and footers, then spend
your time on producing outstanding content and let the class designer format
it for presentation.

Just one man's opinion,

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863


Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Steve Litt
On Friday 20 February 2009 01:55:00 pm Rich Shepard wrote:
[clip]
A lot depends on how we approach our writing. I use LyX for almost all
 my writing, and I accept the default classes and layouts because they were
 designed by folks much more knowledgeable than I about typography, page
 layout, and graphic design. Therefore, I don't futz with minor eye-candy
 (IMNSHO) or other tweaks. Steve and I differ greatly on our philosophy. He
 wants to design every aspect of his books, down to the character level. I
 want to have great looking typeset output but I will spend my time on the
 content and accept the default appearance. You pays you money, and you
 takes you choice.

Hi Rich,

You and I agree more than disagree. I probably let 99% of the appearance of my 
books adopt the LyX/LaTeX defaults, for the same reason you do -- because the 
guys who made the document class know a heck of a lot more about typography, 
page layout and graphic design than I do.

But in every book, there are a very few things that need to look a certain 
way. For example, in Manager's Guide To Troubleshooting I didn't want 
paragraph numbers because my audience are managers. They don't wear digital 
watches, and they shouldn't be subjected to paragraph numbers. And yet I want 
the reader to know, at a glance, his exact level in the logic hierarchy. I 
strongly believe that any reasonable combination of font sizes, shapes and 
weights, could NOT convey that level information at a glance.

No problem. I just start each section, subsection and subsubsection with a 1cm 
line (\rule). The line starting sections is very thick, the line starting 
subsubsections is a hairline, and the line starting subsections is in 
between. A trivial, logical solution. But not at all trivial in LaTeX.

Another example. I write for the most part tech books, so I try to use the 
same page heading format used by the tech books at the bookstore. So I need 
not only to rearrange the page headers and footers, but tweak the headers so 
they don't overfill with my long titles. No problem, I do it, but it takes 
LaTeX.

One other example. Book and Memoir don't have environments for Warning, 
Caution, Tip, Note and the like, unless you want to use the page margins, 
which I don't. Instead, I want to have these sections of text in shaded boxes 
narrower than the normal printing, like the tech books at the bookstore do. 
No problem, but it takes LaTeX knowledge to do.

The document class defaults are great til they're not. When they're not, 
conveying maximum meaning to the reader requires LaTeX knowledge, sometimes 
substantial.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US



Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Steve Litt
On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:
 I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
 1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.

Anthony,

What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they 
published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? 
Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?

What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and 
in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give 
others who write books using LyX?

If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier 
for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.

Below are my answers to those same questions:

Here are the books I've written in LyX:

* Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/ttech.htm)
* The Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm)
* Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/28tales.htm)
* Troubleshooting: Just the Facts 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/tsjustfacts.htm)
* Learn Vim Tonight (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/vimtonight.htm)
* Rapid Learning for the 21st Century 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/rl21.htm)


The first two are print books, the remaining four are Ebooks. The first one 
was a HUGE challenge because it was written in 2001, before LyX had character 
styles, but I used Dekl Tsur's color workaround to simulate character styles. 
Also, the first and second ones were challenging because I didn't have a clue 
about LaTeX, but I wanted my books to look a certain way. Once again, the LyX 
email list people helped me through to get them looking how I wanted.

If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd 
advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

Upon reading that document, I see I have more work to do in that document 
defining terms, but I still think it's the best place to start learning 
LaTeX. Next are things like latex2e.dvi and lshort.dvi (both should be 
findable either in your distro or on the Internet), as well as Lamport's book 
and the other LaTeX books.

If done right, learning LaTeX isn't that bad, and knowing LaTeX has allowed me 
to customize my books' appearances exactly how I wanted them.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Konrad Hofbauer

Steve Litt wrote:
If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX.


I've seen people doing full PhD theses in LyX without the slightest clue 
of latex. Depends all on the field you are in and your requirements.


But as you say,  knowing latex is certainly needed for very advanced 
stuff and tricky customizations.


In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX


Disagreed - I'd say I know my way around in Latex pretty ok, without 
having ever looked at plain TeX. In fact, it is officially discouraged 
to use low-level TeX constructs and macros in LaTeX.


If I'd have to give an advice to a book author who wants to customize 
things: look (in this order) at the LyX manuals, the koma-script or 
memoir manual, and, when needed, the tex-faq.


Just my 2 cents,
Konrad



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread David Hewitt
Steve Litt sl...@... writes:
 If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
 you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
 STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd 
 advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this:
 
 http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

I tend to agree with Konrad. I happily wrote my dissertation in LyX and only
stumbled into LaTeX on an as-needed basis, primarily using the Koma-script
documentation, package documentation at CTAN, and the LyX mailing list. I quite
frankly don't even know the difference between LaTeX and TeX. But, maybe I
SHOULD have looked at Steve's book... will do so now.




Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Rich Shepard

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009, David Hewitt wrote:


I tend to agree with Konrad. I happily wrote my dissertation in LyX and
only stumbled into LaTeX on an as-needed basis, primarily using the
Koma-script documentation, package documentation at CTAN, and the LyX
mailing list. I quite frankly don't even know the difference between LaTeX
and TeX. But, maybe I SHOULD have looked at Steve's book... will do so
now.


  My book was published by Springer-Verlag and used their svmono LaTeX
class. They have a TeXpert on staff (who had me change all \textellipsis to
\ldots; a _very_ subtle difference, but that's their standard). While I've
looked recently and briefly at The TeXbook, I found the most valuable
references were The LaTeX Companion (2nd Ed.), The LaTeX Graphics Companion
(the 2nd Ed. wasn't out then), and Guide to LaTeX (4th Ed.).

  A lot depends on how we approach our writing. I use LyX for almost all my
writing, and I accept the default classes and layouts because they were
designed by folks much more knowledgeable than I about typography, page
layout, and graphic design. Therefore, I don't futz with minor eye-candy
(IMNSHO) or other tweaks. Steve and I differ greatly on our philosophy. He
wants to design every aspect of his books, down to the character level. I
want to have great looking typeset output but I will spend my time on the
content and accept the default appearance. You pays you money, and you takes
you choice.

  However, I learned LaTeX so I could use it to produce forms that can be
read by our Optical Mark Reader (OMR) and do other fancy stuff, and after
looking (and using) at about a half-dozen different vector graphic drawing
tools, I finally settled on PSTricks for all that I do. My visuals for
presentations are done using the beamer class in LyX.

  If you're writing a book or monograph, I recommend picking a style/class
(such as memoir), making a decision about headings and footers, then spend
your time on producing outstanding content and let the class designer format
it for presentation.

Just one man's opinion,

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863


Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Steve Litt
On Friday 20 February 2009 01:55:00 pm Rich Shepard wrote:
[clip]
A lot depends on how we approach our writing. I use LyX for almost all
 my writing, and I accept the default classes and layouts because they were
 designed by folks much more knowledgeable than I about typography, page
 layout, and graphic design. Therefore, I don't futz with minor eye-candy
 (IMNSHO) or other tweaks. Steve and I differ greatly on our philosophy. He
 wants to design every aspect of his books, down to the character level. I
 want to have great looking typeset output but I will spend my time on the
 content and accept the default appearance. You pays you money, and you
 takes you choice.

Hi Rich,

You and I agree more than disagree. I probably let 99% of the appearance of my 
books adopt the LyX/LaTeX defaults, for the same reason you do -- because the 
guys who made the document class know a heck of a lot more about typography, 
page layout and graphic design than I do.

But in every book, there are a very few things that need to look a certain 
way. For example, in Manager's Guide To Troubleshooting I didn't want 
paragraph numbers because my audience are managers. They don't wear digital 
watches, and they shouldn't be subjected to paragraph numbers. And yet I want 
the reader to know, at a glance, his exact level in the logic hierarchy. I 
strongly believe that any reasonable combination of font sizes, shapes and 
weights, could NOT convey that level information at a glance.

No problem. I just start each section, subsection and subsubsection with a 1cm 
line (\rule). The line starting sections is very thick, the line starting 
subsubsections is a hairline, and the line starting subsections is in 
between. A trivial, logical solution. But not at all trivial in LaTeX.

Another example. I write for the most part tech books, so I try to use the 
same page heading format used by the tech books at the bookstore. So I need 
not only to rearrange the page headers and footers, but tweak the headers so 
they don't overfill with my long titles. No problem, I do it, but it takes 
LaTeX.

One other example. Book and Memoir don't have environments for Warning, 
Caution, Tip, Note and the like, unless you want to use the page margins, 
which I don't. Instead, I want to have these sections of text in shaded boxes 
narrower than the normal printing, like the tech books at the bookstore do. 
No problem, but it takes LaTeX knowledge to do.

The document class defaults are great til they're not. When they're not, 
conveying maximum meaning to the reader requires LaTeX knowledge, sometimes 
substantial.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US



Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Steve Litt
On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote:
> I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using
> 1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.

Anthony,

What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they 
published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? 
Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet?

What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and 
in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give 
others who write books using LyX?

If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier 
for lots of people trying to write books in LyX.

Below are my answers to those same questions:

Here are the books I've written in LyX:

* Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/ttech.htm)
* The Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm)
* Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/28tales.htm)
* Troubleshooting: Just the Facts 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/tsjustfacts.htm)
* Learn Vim Tonight (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/vimtonight.htm)
* Rapid Learning for the 21st Century 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/rl21.htm)


The first two are print books, the remaining four are Ebooks. The first one 
was a HUGE challenge because it was written in 2001, before LyX had character 
styles, but I used Dekl Tsur's color workaround to simulate character styles. 
Also, the first and second ones were challenging because I didn't have a clue 
about LaTeX, but I wanted my books to look a certain way. Once again, the LyX 
email list people helped me through to get them looking how I wanted.

If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd 
advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

Upon reading that document, I see I have more work to do in that document 
defining terms, but I still think it's the best place to start learning 
LaTeX. Next are things like latex2e.dvi and lshort.dvi (both should be 
findable either in your distro or on the Internet), as well as Lamport's book 
and the other LaTeX books.

If done right, learning LaTeX isn't that bad, and knowing LaTeX has allowed me 
to customize my books' appearances exactly how I wanted them.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Konrad Hofbauer

Steve Litt wrote:
If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX.


I've seen people doing full PhD theses in LyX without the slightest clue 
of latex. Depends all on the field you are in and your requirements.


But as you say,  knowing latex is certainly needed for very advanced 
stuff and tricky customizations.


In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX


Disagreed - I'd say I know my way around in Latex pretty ok, without 
having ever looked at plain TeX. In fact, it is officially discouraged 
to use low-level TeX constructs and macros in LaTeX.


If I'd have to give an advice to a book author who wants to customize 
things: look (in this order) at the LyX manuals, the koma-script or 
memoir manual, and, when needed, the tex-faq.


Just my 2 cents,
Konrad



Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread David Hewitt
Steve Litt  writes:
> If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute 
> you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST 
> STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd 
> advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this:
> 
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm

I tend to agree with Konrad. I happily wrote my dissertation in LyX and only
stumbled into LaTeX on an as-needed basis, primarily using the Koma-script
documentation, package documentation at CTAN, and the LyX mailing list. I quite
frankly don't even know the difference between LaTeX and TeX. But, maybe I
SHOULD have looked at Steve's book... will do so now.




Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Rich Shepard

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009, David Hewitt wrote:


I tend to agree with Konrad. I happily wrote my dissertation in LyX and
only stumbled into LaTeX on an as-needed basis, primarily using the
Koma-script documentation, package documentation at CTAN, and the LyX
mailing list. I quite frankly don't even know the difference between LaTeX
and TeX. But, maybe I SHOULD have looked at Steve's book... will do so
now.


  My book was published by Springer-Verlag and used their svmono LaTeX
class. They have a TeXpert on staff (who had me change all \textellipsis to
\ldots; a _very_ subtle difference, but that's their standard). While I've
looked recently and briefly at The TeXbook, I found the most valuable
references were The LaTeX Companion (2nd Ed.), The LaTeX Graphics Companion
(the 2nd Ed. wasn't out then), and Guide to LaTeX (4th Ed.).

  A lot depends on how we approach our writing. I use LyX for almost all my
writing, and I accept the default classes and layouts because they were
designed by folks much more knowledgeable than I about typography, page
layout, and graphic design. Therefore, I don't futz with minor eye-candy
(IMNSHO) or other tweaks. Steve and I differ greatly on our philosophy. He
wants to design every aspect of his books, down to the character level. I
want to have great looking typeset output but I will spend my time on the
content and accept the default appearance. You pays you money, and you takes
you choice.

  However, I learned LaTeX so I could use it to produce forms that can be
read by our Optical Mark Reader (OMR) and do other fancy stuff, and after
looking (and using) at about a half-dozen different vector graphic drawing
tools, I finally settled on PSTricks for all that I do. My visuals for
presentations are done using the beamer class in LyX.

  If you're writing a book or monograph, I recommend picking a style/class
(such as memoir), making a decision about headings and footers, then spend
your time on producing outstanding content and let the class designer format
it for presentation.

Just one man's opinion,

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863


Re: Books in LyX: Was How to import separate chapters into document?

2009-02-20 Thread Steve Litt
On Friday 20 February 2009 01:55:00 pm Rich Shepard wrote:
[clip]
>A lot depends on how we approach our writing. I use LyX for almost all
> my writing, and I accept the default classes and layouts because they were
> designed by folks much more knowledgeable than I about typography, page
> layout, and graphic design. Therefore, I don't futz with minor eye-candy
> (IMNSHO) or other tweaks. Steve and I differ greatly on our philosophy. He
> wants to design every aspect of his books, down to the character level. I
> want to have great looking typeset output but I will spend my time on the
> content and accept the default appearance. You pays you money, and you
> takes you choice.

Hi Rich,

You and I agree more than disagree. I probably let 99% of the appearance of my 
books adopt the LyX/LaTeX defaults, for the same reason you do -- because the 
guys who made the document class know a heck of a lot more about typography, 
page layout and graphic design than I do.

But in every book, there are a very few things that need to look a certain 
way. For example, in "Manager's Guide To Troubleshooting" I didn't want 
paragraph numbers because my audience are managers. They don't wear digital 
watches, and they shouldn't be subjected to paragraph numbers. And yet I want 
the reader to know, at a glance, his exact level in the logic hierarchy. I 
strongly believe that any reasonable combination of font sizes, shapes and 
weights, could NOT convey that level information at a glance.

No problem. I just start each section, subsection and subsubsection with a 1cm 
line (\rule). The line starting sections is very thick, the line starting 
subsubsections is a hairline, and the line starting subsections is in 
between. A trivial, logical solution. But not at all trivial in LaTeX.

Another example. I write for the most part tech books, so I try to use the 
same page heading format used by the tech books at the bookstore. So I need 
not only to rearrange the page headers and footers, but tweak the headers so 
they don't overfill with my long titles. No problem, I do it, but it takes 
LaTeX.

One other example. Book and Memoir don't have environments for Warning, 
Caution, Tip, Note and the like, unless you want to use the page margins, 
which I don't. Instead, I want to have these sections of text in shaded boxes 
narrower than the normal printing, like the tech books at the bookstore do. 
No problem, but it takes LaTeX knowledge to do.

The document class defaults are great til they're not. When they're not, 
conveying maximum meaning to the reader requires LaTeX knowledge, sometimes 
substantial.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US