The new LyX
Earlier this month, LyX version 1.5 was released. This release included a number of significant changes to LyX, both cosmetic and under the hood. The key changes include:
- An outliner
- Tabs for different documents
- A new math panel that automatically turns on when in math mode and has floating menus which you can leave docked
- Unicode support
- Source view
- QT4 under the hood (which looks much better on Windows at least)
You can see the entire release notes file here. With these changes, LyX seems (to me at least) much more stable. And even after using to import and edit a long document created in Scientific Word, it hasn’t crashed on me. I’m finally ready to use LyX as my primary typesetting application (at least until I find some bug that breaks the deal). Since fate ate my iBook, I haven’t been able to test the OS X version, so I can’t speak to its stability.
Why use LyX?
I’ve written about LyX before, but the program is very innovative and deserves a little more publicity. LyX is a document preparation system that uses LaTeX to produce high-quality documents. It is essentially a visual frontend for LaTeX, allowing users to create LaTeX documents without coding in the LaTeX markup language. Some people don’t mind writing LaTeX documents. Others, myself included, find it distracting. With LyX, you get the power of LaTeX coupled with the visual editing power of traditional word processors. You also get documents that can be saved in the LaTeX format — an open, human readable standard — so you don’t have to worry about proprietary binary file formats eating your intellectual property. Oh, and you get it all for free.
LyX is essentially the open-source version of Scientific Word, the premier LaTeX-based scientific word processor. Unlike Scientific Word, however, LyX features:
- Access to many document classes including FoilTex, PowerDot, Beamer, etc.
- Changeable document classes — change from slides to article, for example, to make a quick handout
- Revision tools such as track changes
- Tables that can be pasted from spreadsheet applications like Excel
- Integration with open-source software such as Maxima and Octave
- Easily nestable environments (lists with lists, etc.)
- Math input using LaTeX syntax (\beta) and keyboard shortcuts (M-m g b)
Some quick LyX tips
In math mode, type “\bmatrix” to enter an amsmath bracketed matrix. Then use “M-m w i” to insert a column and “M-m c i” to insert a column (the M stands for “Meta” which is “alt” on Windows). As far as I know, this shortcut is undocumented.
Keyboard shortcut lists can be found here. The shortcuts in LyX are fully customizable, and pre-made customization for specific purposes (for example, compatibility with Scientific Word) come with the download. But as long as you know LaTeX, you can get away with only knowing three shortcuts:
- Ctrl+m inserts inline mathematics
- Ctrl+M inserts displayed math (and Ctrl+Shift+Enter inserts a multiline equation)
- Alt+Space moves the focus to the environment drop down menu, from which you can type the first few letters of any environment, for example Section or Itemize, to change the current paragraph to that environment
Getting LyX
LyX can be downloaded for Linux, Windows and OS X here.
Update: 24 August 07. I have encountered a spell-checking related crasher (Windows) that makes me hesitant to use LyX for important documents. Stability is still much better, though. Hopefully in a few iterations it will get there — I’d really like to have LyX as a cross-platform, open-source graphical LaTeX frontend.
Update: 12 November 07. LyX 1.5.2 is out. So far, no crashers. Looks promising.
