This ties in closely with the ongoing discussion of the goals of LyX.
The LyX editor itself is to put in the content/hierarchical
organization of a document. When I need to preview the actual
document, I use that option in LyX (cmd-T on a macintosh, View-
>update->pdf on the menu) which lets me see the current .pdf file
output.
I've come to LyX from the opposite end of many of the people writing:
I started with LaTeX, ideal for writing mathematical papers/
bibliographies, and now find LyX a wonderful way to simiplify
document formatting and preparation. I only use WYSIWYG editors for
quick-hack items that things like MS Word can do more easily than
LyX. (That's an increasingly rare event for me.)
LaTeX's document formatting reminds me of what Henry Ford said long
ago about the Model T car: "You can have it in any color you like, as
long as it's black." LaTeX and, by consequence, LyX, do what the do
very well, but their purpose and use is quite different from WYSIWYG
document preparation.
Yours,
A S Hodel
On Jun 19, 2006, at 3:00 PM, Peter Bowyer wrote:
Hi,
I am one of the people who cannot finds editing documents hard on
screen - I end up printing a copy and then working through it with
a pen, making changes and restructuring, and then typing the
changes up.
I didn't find this a problem when using Word because what was on-
screen looked like the paper copy, so I didn't have to think hard
about which parts matched up. However with LyX this has become
much more difficult, because the printed copy and the editable copy
don't look similar.
Now I know that people have been writing documents this way for
much longer than word processors have been around, (think of raw
TeX) which suggests it's a problem with my approach. Do you have
any tips or suggestions for making the editing process smoother?
Thanks,
Peter
