On Friday 20 February 2009 09:35:27 am Anthony Campbell wrote: > I'm just starting to prepare my fourth book with Lyx, this time using > 1.6.1 instead of 1.5.x.
Anthony, What were your other three books? Are you self-publishing them, were they published by others, or were they books used internally by an organization? Are their descriptions/sales-brochures viewable on the Internet? What challenges did you have to overcome in order to write books with LyX, and in what ways was LyX a pleasant surprise? Do you have any tips you can give others who write books using LyX? If you, I and a few others answer these questions, it might make life easier for lots of people trying to write books in LyX. Below are my answers to those same questions: Here are the books I've written in LyX: * Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/ttech.htm) * The Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm) * Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/28tales.htm) * Troubleshooting: Just the Facts (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/tsjustfacts.htm) * Learn Vim Tonight (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/vimtonight.htm) * Rapid Learning for the 21st Century (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/rl21.htm) The first two are print books, the remaining four are Ebooks. The first one was a HUGE challenge because it was written in 2001, before LyX had character styles, but I used Dekl Tsur's color workaround to simulate character styles. Also, the first and second ones were challenging because I didn't have a clue about LaTeX, but I wanted my books to look a certain way. Once again, the LyX email list people helped me through to get them looking how I wanted. If I had to give LyX advice to a prospective author, I'd say that the minute you've committed to using LyX, learn LaTeX. In my opionion, the VERY FIRST STEP in learning LaTeX is to learn TeX, which is about 1000 times easier. I'd advise the new LyX-using book author to start with this: http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/lyx_latex_tex.htm Upon reading that document, I see I have more work to do in that document defining terms, but I still think it's the best place to start learning LaTeX. Next are things like latex2e.dvi and lshort.dvi (both should be findable either in your distro or on the Internet), as well as Lamport's book and the other LaTeX books. If done right, learning LaTeX isn't that bad, and knowing LaTeX has allowed me to customize my books' appearances exactly how I wanted them. SteveT Steve Litt Recession Relief Package http://www.recession-relief.US
