Internet News
Internet Stocks/VC
Internet Technology
Windows Internet Tech.
Linux/Open Source
Web Developer
ECommerce/Marketing
ISP Resources
ASP Resources
Wireless Internet
Downloads
Internet Resources
Internet Lists
International

Search internet.com
Advertising Info
Corporate Info

Be a Commerce Partner
Software Store
Computer Help
Register Domains
Internet Jobs
Map Your Website
Rent E-mail Lists
Bookstore
Press Release dist.
Internet Research
Venture Capital
Web Publishing
Build Your Intranet
Ask an Expert
Get e-Biz Intell.
Content for Websites
Build Sticky eStores
Advertise a Coupon
Promotional Products
Accept Credit Cards
Download Solutions
Shopping Cart
fax & vmail for free
Hardware Store
PDA Time Tracking
News to Your Desktop
Small Biz Purchasing
B2B Directory/Search
Freelancers
Site Search Solutions
Hosting Services
Get Calls Online
Business Banking
Free Disk Space
Search for a Web Host
Continuing Education
IT Products and Svcs
Offer Free Email
Survey Your Web Users

LyX - The Document Processor
While word processors have made writing easier, they seem to have saddled the writer with the added burden of being a typesetter. Instead of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), LyX is WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean).

By Ralph Krause

While word processors have made writing easier, they seem to have saddled the writer with the added burden of being a typesetter. Once you have typed your text you usually spend quite a bit of time changing fonts, manipulating whitespace, correcting section numbers, tweaking fonts, and inserting page breaks. Plus, the headaches of trying to control hidden formatting codes that the program puts in.

If this sounds all too familiar to you, and if you create most of your work to be printed, LyX could make your life easier. Instead of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), LyX is WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean). You type your text into LyX and identify it as a paragraph, list item, section name, footnote, etc. LyX then determines how to format section headings, what spacing to use between paragraphs, what margins to be used, where to place page breaks, etc. With very few exceptions you can't change fonts or whitespace in your documents at all.

LyX also has the ability to generate complex mathematical formulas with ease and display them on the screen as they will appear in print.

What is LyX?

LyX is a graphical front-end to the TeX program and the LaTeX2e macros for it. LaTeX is a document preparation system designed by Leslie Lamport in 1985. It, in turn, was built up from a typesetting language called TeX, created by Donald Knuth in 1984. TeX takes a sequence of typesetting commands and generates a device independent format (dvi) file from them. This dvi file can be converted to a format such as PostScript and be printed. The LaTeX macros provide for the production of complex documents with no knowledge of typesetting. These programs are very mature, stable, and reliable, compared to some word processors in use today.

Installing LyX

I installed LyX 1.1.5.1 on my FreeBSD 4.2 system using the port located in /usr/ports/print/lyx. LyX is also available for NetBSD, OpenBSD and Windows, although at slightly different versions. LyX depends upon the teTeX-src-1.0.7 and teTeX-texmf-1.0.2 packages which are large. Downloading and compiling them can take quite a while, especially on older machines over slow Internet connections.

You will have to have your printer working and configured to print PostScript, which usually involves installing GhostScript. LyX uses dvips to convert its files to PostScript and xdvi to allow you to view them on the screen. LyX will use ghostview to show the PostScript versions of your files if it is installed.

Continue to page two: Using LyX, LyX and KLyX, and Conclusion.