________________________________
From: Maria Gouskova <gousk...@gmail.com>
To: Liviu Andronic <landronim...@gmail.com>
Cc: stefano franchi <stefano.fran...@gmail.com>; lyx-users
<lyx-users@lists.lyx.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:23:43 PM
Subject: Re: [off-topic] LyX as a LaTeX table editor (and other selling advice)
On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Liviu Andronic <landronim...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 2:45 PM, stefano franchi
><stefano.fran...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Continuous spell-checking is a fairly common editor's feature nowadays.
>> Linux's Kile (a Latex editor) has it, for instance, and it is based on
>> standard KDE components. As much as I love Lyx's spellchecker (and I
>> wouldn't be able to work without it), I would hesitate to sell Lyx over
>> Latex on it.
>>
>However if the LaTeX user is used to spell-checking, then selling LyX
>without stressing the feature would be a deal-breaker. :) Anyways, I'm
>not that familiar with LaTeX editors, and this specific colleague was
>using one without a spell-checking feature.
>
>Oh, one other point.. My pitch for selling LyX is that it is "like
>Word for LaTeX". And then I start clicking around to show how
>intuitive all is, and display the source pane to show them what they
>would have had to type to get that specific construct (including
>math). I think this delivers the message rather well.
>
>Cheers,
>Liviu
>
I occasionally teach a "How to use MS Word" workshop in my department,
where I show grad students how to make use of the formatting styles
feature, automatic numbering, and cross-referencing. Then a grad student
and I will co-teach a workshop on LaTeX/LyX. We start with LaTeX
proper, explained by the grad student. Then I show how LyX combines the
stability and control of
LaTeX with the gui-ness of Word, and I specifically mention tables as a major
difference.
Tables were the deal breaker for me wrt
"real LaTeX". I use tables all the time, and LyX's table editor is not,
frankly, as elegant as Word's (as I remember Word from the year 2003 or so).
But LyX's table editing features are good enough for my usual needs, and it
definitely has an advantage over other LaTeX editors.
Maria
I find LaTeX tables a bit intimidating , well a lot intimidating, and athough
LyX tables are a huge improvement I also haev found that there is a LaTeX table
extention for Apache OpenOffice (Calc Calc2LaTeX.oxt). Not wildly
sophisticated but it let's one set up a formatted spreadsheet table and stick
it in a ERT box in LyX where one can fine-tune things if need be.
