> -----Original Message----- > From: Rich Shepard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 2:38 PM > To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org > Subject: RE: WRB - Installing LyX > > On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote: > > > LyX/LaTeX are not WYSIWYM because it makes decisions about where I > > want text and graphics to be. Well, let me put this claim under > > suspension, while I test the various alternative *frame* mechanisms > > that have been suggested by others. > > You can write your own class or style that overrides and > changes the defaults. That's what many publishers (e.g., > Spriger-Verlag's monoclass, and the theses classes of many > universities) do. Make the output _exactly_ how you want it, > then you'll have consistent results from document to document > and you won't have to think about it again.
Ventura does the same thing, and you move these from document to document, publication to publication. They are called style sheets, and can be quite extensive. Clearly, this is a capability that is shared by the tools, Ventura Publisher and LyX. > > One point of decorum, please, do not confuse Ventura Publisher with > > the limitations associated with brochures and pamphlets. > VP is first > > and foremost intended for the production of large volumes, > including > > multi-volume books. It is a dream tool for those who edit > and publish > > collections of essays. To boot, it will handle a > publication of many > > thousands of pages, all while allowing you to adjust the > position of a > > period at the end of a particular sentence. It you want, it will > > layout the text for you. If you want, it will let you > layout the text > > with the finest degree of control. That choice is yours. > > On the other hand, TeX was invented by Don Knuth because > in the 1970s and 1980s there were no satisfactory tools to > typeset mathematical formulae and symbols well. From what > I've heard and read, Word and PowerPoint slavishly adhere to > this practice. So, TeX was designed as a book typesetting system. > The next year, Leslie Lamport brought it from the level of > assembly language to that of C by providing the LaTeX macro > system. LyX adds a GUI front end; I suppose to finish the > programming language analogy it's not like Visual Cobol, but > more like an IDE (java beans, perhaps?) > > > Perhaps I express naïveté but, why does every .lyx document contain > > only one LaTeX file? Would it not make sense for *box* and > its kind > > to contain separately TeXable source? LyX could then at a higher > > level piece a document together, page by page, outputting > the image to > > a PDF, or what have you? > > Probably for the same reason that those who process words > write separate documents (e.g., chapters) then assemble them > into a whole by using a master document. > > Rich Well, it is just a different tool, and learning the details will simply take time. wrb
