Before answering your questions I should state that I come from a long background of using latex.
As stated by one of the other replies, if you use a standard style and modify it using some of the menu options available then Lyx is very easy to use. However, if you wish to customise the styles then life gets a lot more complex. Many University theses formats however only require simple modifications of the standard book style. Even if you are not customising styles you will still need to get below the hood occasionally and look at Latex code (mainly to handle funny errors when compiling the Latex generated out the back of Lyx). However, if you have done a little programming in the past and buy Leslie Lamport's book titled "Latex, a Document Preparation System" you should be able to handle this. Notwithstanding the above caveats and cautions, I believe that Lyx is much more suitable for a thesis (as compared to Word) because of the proper floating of diagrams and tables. One of the biggest problems with Word, when dealing with large documents with many figures and tables is that every time the document is edited the figures are moved to inappropriate places (similarly for tables) leaving large blank sections on many pages. This becomes a real headache when the thesis is nearing completion and you are doing what you believe are final edits -- after a while you will not be game enough to edit anything because it will muck up the formatting of the whole document. It can take hours to fix such formatting changes. The other real strength of Lyx is the ease of entering complex mathematics. The user interface allows very rapid entering of maths using the keyboard. Furthermore, one can set up math macros for the standard mathematical structures that you are going to use. This allows rapid entry of these, and ensures that they are always consistently formatted. Furthermore, if you change the way that one or more of these standard structures should be written you only have to change the macro and these will be formatted using the changed format everywhere through the thesis. This is a big plus when you are writing large documents with perhaps hundreds of mathematical expressions. Lyx allows the input of PDF and EPS based diagrams and displays them in the user interface. These diagram formats are vector based and far superior in quality of output as compared to bitmapped based formats (such as jpg, bmp, tiff etc). Photographs, which are implicitly in bitmapped formats, are also graciously handled in Lyx. The final reason you should seriously consider Lyx is that because it is based on Latex the output documents are beautiful. The kerning, line breaking, page layout and mathematics layout algorithms used in Latex are far superior to those used in Word. Your thesis will look as though it is professionally typeset. In my University almost all of the students either do their thesis in raw Latex or use the Lyx front end to Latex. Hope my experiences help with your decision. Regards Bob Betz --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Robert Betz Ampcontrol Professor of Power Engineering, Head, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of Newcastle, Australia, email: robert.b...@newcastle.edu.au FAX: +61-2-4921-6993 TEL: +61-2-4921-6091 Mobile: (+61)-(0)419249948 --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 3:49 AM, in message <1318870193355-6901371.p...@n2.nabble.com>, Johnston81 <johnsto...@gmail.com> wrote: > To the ones that can and will help, > > I apologize if this has already been covered in another topic; I have > searched but been unable to find any such. If, however, you know of such > topics, if you could please point me in the right direction? > > My current situation is this: I am working on my Master Thesis and currently > doing my research and such. As it is now, I am uncertain how large my final > project will be - I imagine that the final document will probably exceed 100 > pages, but where I am uncertain of size I am certain that the document will > contain considerable amounts of graphs and tables - rather more than I am > comfortable working with in Word 2010. > > My questions are fairly simple to ask, I am not certain that everybody will > agree on the answers but rough estimates are all I am looking for anyway. So > here goes: > > 1. Considering LyX over Word, how much time would I approximately need to > learn LyX to the extent that I can actually produce text, including graphics > and formulas(!), from a template? > 2. What can I reasonably expect my learning curve to be after having learned > the bare basics; what I mean is, is it simple to teach LyX to oneself and > how easy is it to solve problems when encountered? > 3. And finally, being a skilled user of Word would I - ultimately - save or > spend time if I did try my luck on LyX? > > I have many more similar questions, but for now this will have to do - I > shouldn't take to much of your time! But if you have any other advice or > experiences that relate to my post, that you feel could help me or others > that are doing the same kind of contemplations, please do not hesitate and > do share! > > Thank you very much for time. I look forward to read your replies! > > Johnston81 > > -- > View this message in context: > http://lyx.475766.n2.nabble.com/Engineering-student-considering-LyX-for-Thesis-tp > 6901371p6901371.html > Sent from the LyX - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
