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.
Paper is something I usually only use for final output. I use view->pdf
or view->dvi when I want an exact preview.
Still, I know the problem very well. I wrote a book, and went through
several
iterations where the publisher sent back a printout where all sorts of
corrections were marked with a pen.
The paper was not like the screen, but seriously, it is not with other word
processors either. It may be the same when you start doing corrections,
but after fixing stuff on pages 1 and 2, the line and page breaking becomes
different througout the rest of the chapter anyway.
Instead of considering "where on the page is this error", I looked for
"where is the error relative to the previous (or next) heading.
Finding a heading is easy enough, counting paragraphs from there
is simple too. Finally, finding the correct place in the paragraph is easy
as paragraphs are so small. Don't count lines in a big paragraph,
just estimate wheter the place you want is in the first, second or last
third of the paragraph.
My book also uses numbered headings, that makes it easier too.
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?
Well, it is not that hard, you just have to get used to not using the
"where on the sheet is this" approach. If you need to find something
far away in a big document, use the search function. Press ctrl+f,
and enter part of the sentence you are looking for. Then lyx goes
right there. Otherwise, counting headers and paragraphs works. They
are the same on paper and screen, although the shape differ a bit.
Helge Hafting
