Copyright (C) 2001 by Steve Litt,
All
rights reserved. Material provided as-is, use at your own risk.
It was the best word processor, it was the worst word processor,
it was the fastest, it was the slowest.
it output the best format, it output the worst format
it was the easiest, it was the hardest.
It's Lyx
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Some software decisions are no-brainers. Nobody conscious of security
would use Microsoft Outlook. Everyone chooses Linux as server software.
Lyx isn't so simple. Lyx is a styles-based document processing tool.
Its role in life is to allow (and force) the author to format his document
with styles representing concepts like headings, code, verses, emphasis
and the like, instead of formatting the look of the document. Lyx then
translates the styles-based document into a good looking, well typeset,
logically consistent Postscript, DVI or PDF document.
I've chosen Lyx to write my next book. That's a serious choice, because
a 200 page book represents about $5,000-$10,000 of sweat equity. Not the
kind of thing you want to dead-end. I chose Lyx after doing months of research
and a week-long evaluation.
Is Lyx for you? I can't say. All I can do is tell you how to evaluate
it, and give you a tutorial so you needn't spend an entire week learning
enough to evaluate it. Read on...
The Best and Worst
It was the best word processor
Lyx allows you to concentrate on the content, without a worry about its
format. Imagine how much you can slam out if you needn't worry about whether
you use 12 courier or 10 courier bold to represent source code in your
book. Imagine being able to write a simple script to take your tab delimited
book outline and transform it into the structure of a Lyx book. Imagine
a word processor designed from the ground up to output well typeset text
and pictures, properly doing page numbering, two sided printing (with the
proper binding margin so text doesn't get lost in the binding).
Imagine a word processor that allows you to represent a math formula
the right way, instead of representing it the way a computer programmer
would. Imagine a word processor that enables you to write an entire book,
including contents, index, footnotes, margin notes, and practically anything
else you'd want. Without even thinking about about it. And having the book
come out looking professionally typeset.
Lyx is a self-publisher's dream.
It was the worst word processor
Imagine a word processor that won't let you format your pages the way you
want. Imagine a word processor so arrogant that it assumes what you want
your books style to be. And is so hard to configure that only the bravest
dare modify the defaults.
Lyx is a serious committment, and for some there's no guarantee that
committment will pay off. The tutorial on this page makes the committment
much easier.
It was the fastest
With Lyx, all you do is write content. Just slam out content all the day
long. You never lose your train of thought by trying to remember what font
to use. There's a style for everything you want to do, and if the style
doesn't exist you can make it (though with some difficulty).
It was the slowest
It could take days, or maybe even weeks, to learn enough Lyx, and its underlying
markup language called LaTeX, to be able to create the styles you need
for your specialized documents. You'd need to use Lyx for quite a bit of
writing to justify such an investment. The first few days you use Lyx it's
likely you'll curse it as the slowest and silliest wordprocessor that ever
existed.
Incidentally, one of the two purposes of this web page is to greatly
reduce the learning period for Lyx. But make no mistake about it -- you'll
be unproductive for a few days.
It output the best format
When you write with Lyx and print your book, it looks just like a book
you'd buy at the bookstore. Headings are crisp and bold. Body text is tight
and well justified. There's just the right amount of spacing. It's beautiful!
It output the worst format
The book structure LyX gives you doesn't even have space for a copyright
page. Ever see a book without a copyright page? Your choices are to use
a different book format (KOMA-Script) that lacks some of the standard book's
beauty, or do all sorts of kludges just to put in a copyright page, or
modify the basic Lyx styles. Do you want a style for questions and answers
at the back of the book? Either hack em, forget em, or roll your own styles.
Making your own styles is a complex undertaking, but it doesn't have
to be rocket science. Take an hour to complete the tutorials on this page,
and you'll understand the process of making styles. From there, simply
read the manuals to learn the proper codes.
It was the easiest
All you do is type. Lyx handles all formatting. You never need to remember
your style for source code or for poetry (verse) or quotations. You just
type.
Cooler still, the native Lyx format is coded ascii, so it's easily manipulated
by my favorite editor, Vim. If for some reason Lyx turns out to be wrong
for me, I can use my editor to rescue most of my book's content and convert
it to XML or some other open format.
It was the hardest
Hey, we've all made our own styles. We're all veterans of WordPerfect and
MS Word. But styles are easy in those programs. In Lyx making or modifying
styles is like open heart surgery. Every time you need to do something
just a little different, Lyx gets in your face and laughs.
Unless you've taken the tutorials on this page. These tutorials give
you a firm foundation to build on. From there it's just a matter of looking
up the correct codes for your new or modified styles, and doing a little
experimentation.
It's LyX!
LyX isn't an easy decision. If you decide to use it, use
Litt's LyX Library
as your guide.