On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 10:17:40AM -0600, Stefano Franchi wrote: ...
> >What are the drawbacks of using LyX to write a novel or a letter? > > > > The big problem with using LyX to write a novel is that the publisher > will ask you a MS word file. Same thing if you use LyX to write papers > for most humanities and social sciences. Then you are left with the > choice of doing the conversion by hand, or going through some > complicated routes (like going through openoffice). In my opinion, the > greatest possible improvement to LyX would be a one-click > publisher-oriented MS Word converter. That would be a converter that > preserves basic formatting like (font styles), bibliography, etc. and > completely disregards all the real typographical information. I.e. a > converter that assumes the recipient (a publisher) will import the Word > file into a serious DTP program to take care of the typography, and > uses MS Word as a transitional format only. Switch publisher (I know. Easier said than done). Nobody should be forced to produce ugly things. Ugly is evil. You will never be able to build a converter that preserves beauty... though the above proposal is a valiant try. Unfortunately it is also an enabler for a bad habit. I find myself occasionally even manually converting to LyX stuff that other people send me, just to be able to work on it without fighting the tools rather than the subject matter, and despite having little time to spare for inessentials in my job work -- something that keeping down my blood pressure is not. ...and nothing based on the Word paradigm, including OOo and Abi, is good enough for anything beyond an office memo. Yes, millions of people use it. Millions of flies eat sh*t too. - Martin
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