On Sun, 08 Dec 2013 11:13:48 -0800 John White <j...@whitelawchartered.com> wrote:
> Thanks Steve, > > A bit above my pay-grade, I fear. My secretary uses libreoffice, for > which she has a pleading paper template (perhaps she made it). She > has no problem getting .odt files onto searchable pdfs. I think she > just does up the document and then adds the pleading template. Not > sure. I am sure that she thinks I am silly to insist on using lyx > when searchable pleading paper with indexes is required. On the > other hand, to the extent that what I do can be called > "thinking," (some wouldn't call it that) I think in lyx, not .odt. > > John Hi John, Point of clarification: I wouldn't be caught dead using LyX for any document under 10K words. For short docs, LibreOffice is just fine. Or straight TeX, which is dead bang simple. If the pleadings are less than 10K words, why fight city hall: Use LibreOffice. LibreOffice, whose styles suck, still takes 1/10 the time to make styles that LaTeX based formats like LyX do. An hour or a day to make a style is no problem if you allocate it over the two months it took you to bang out 100K words, but it's a tragedy if you allocate it over the two days a 10K document took to write. ======================== NOTE: I stop here to give a chance to those who will come in to tell me that styles in LyX/LaTeX would be easy if only I were good at them, or to claim that various packages solve all problems, or to claim that LyX/LaTeX doc classes are so wonderful you can simply use their existing styles. ======================== It's very possible, and I think advisable, to use LyX for some things and LibreOffice for others. If you often write big documents, like over 20K words, I'd recommend you learn a little bit more about LyX, the latex executable, shellscripts, index internals, LaTeX commands and environments, and the like. Long run, you'll have more aesthetic output, and save time. SteveT Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
