On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 02:37:08PM +0200, Michael Logies wrote: > I am quite satisfied with Lyx though I`m using it only for 5 weeks now and > have written only about 40 pages (with some floats and tables). And I like, > that it is open source, because some parts of my thesis should be easily be > copied and integrated in other papers (I will put it on my website as a > lyx- and latex-file besides PDF). I had to discuss a bit with my professor > before he accepted PDF instead of Word97 which he wanted to use with its > "correction function" in our cooperation.
There is some change tracking patch for LyX 1.2 (ask John for details) which should provide similar functionality AFAIK. But I understand that changing a professors way to do work is usually not done in a day... > Now he prints and corrects manually, then sending me his corrections > (we seldom see us personally). > > But Lyx (Qt for Windows) is still not there that I can recommend it to > a typical Windows-User. When I looked around I only found Framemaker > (1600 Euro in its german edition). Here I learnt about Scientific Word > (500 to 600 USD): http://www.mackichan.com/products/whichproduct.html > Scientific Word seems very similar to Lyx. And it is based on Latex, > too. SW & LyX basically target the same kind of users. My boss is/has been using it so I 'see it in action' from time to time. As far as I can tell, they are (apart from the pretty good CAS interface) not as far apart concerning core functionality (there are even area where LyX excels like including fancy graphic formats, 'non-trivial' exports and extensibility), but SW is clearly much more polished. SW comes e.g. with a 'style' editor and a pretty extensive collection of Journal styles whereas in LyX you may have to write things like Style Quotation LatexType Environment LatexName quotation ItemSep 0 TopSep 0.5 BottomSep 0.5 ParSep 0 AlignPossible Block, Left, Right, Center End yourself if you use 'non standard' classes. (Or ask somebody to do it for you...) > So perhaps this product would be an easier migration path to the > Latex-world than Lyx is at the moment. If you can afford the 500 USD (and do not think that money is better invested in making LyX a better 'product'), it is not the worst choice. My main reason not to use it is that it only runs on MS Windows and MacKinchan(?) flatly refuses to build a Linux version of it. > One advantage of Scientific Word is, that it has an integrated > export to RTF, connecting Latex to the MS-Word-World. Have you tried that? That's a lossy conversion both ways, so it is certainly not a means to co-operate with someone stuck to MS Word. > I know, that this can be done with free software from Latex to RTF, > but it is still not integrated within Lyx And never will. The Unix philosophy is not to build monolithic apps but rather re-use existing applications as building blocks. So if there is a 'latex2rtf' out there, set this up as a .tex->.rtf converter in your preferences and you will be done. I've never used latex2rtf, though, so I can't judge its quality. > Has anyone first hand experience with Scientific Word? Is it more > mature than Lyx 1.3.2? It is more 'mature', especially if you are locked in Windows. [That's not necessarily a reason to use it, but that's my opinion.] Andre'
