On 08/18/2013 04:24 PM, Wolfgang Keller wrote:
I'm always looking for software that fits me better, giving me the
output I'm looking for.
I'm interested in knowing what users of LyX think of the idea of
using it as a general word processor, instead of MS Word, Libre
Office, Apple's Pages, etc.
Pluses? Minuses?
I've been surprised by the responses thusfar to this thread. Of course,
I am biased, both because I am a long-time LyX user -- probably one of
the first aside from Matthias -- and because I am a mathematician, so
equation-formatting is very important to me.
But I do use LyX for all of my writing; letter, class notes, and of
course technical writing. I literally cannot use Word or its clones for
anything other than reading what someone else wrote. I don't know how
to make anything look right using Word. I am amazed by the way people
use those programs, worrying about fonts, margins, making headers
larger/smaller/etc. I just don't worry about that stuff. That is the
biggest plus. You never have to worry about the pure formatting stuff,
that is all taken care of. You only have to worry about what you are
writing. Sounds good to me.
For my papers it is of course ideal. Math journals all accept (prefer)
LaTeX source, and they can change margins and other style tweaks with
their own style files --- so I don't have to worry about it. For
letters I have a file with all my settings, which I just re-use for each
new letter. For classroom slides I use beamer -- makes it trivial to do.
I could of course just use raw LaTeX, and sometimes I do. I am doing
that now with a paper, because a co-author wrote up the first draft, and
so we are sticking with the LaTeX rather than translate into LyX. But
with LyX I can see what I am doing, with properly typeset equations, so
I can think while I am writing.
--
David L. Johnson
Department of Mathematics
Lehigh University
