Does anyone use LaTex and/or Lyx?

[woodsmoke]

I really work wordprocessors very hard and was looking around in Muon, to test it, and perused the Lyx info etc.

I really do not want to have to go to the trouble to learn a lot of "command line" stuff, but the Lyx package mentioned how it presents a gui that allows one to easily manipulate things like "equations" in the Latex document.

It did occur to me that would be a good thing for the physical science class and that maybe it would "save as" or export to an odt.

So any kibbitzers who wish to komment would be welkome! lol

woodinto"ks"todaysmoke

[Snowhog]

According to their website,

Document formats

• Access to all LaTeX functionality with capability to insert plain LaTeX code anywhere in a document.
• Import and export to many formats (LaTeX, PDF, Postscript, DVI, ASCII, HTML, OpenDocument, RTF, MS Word, and others) thanks to configurable converters
• Send a fax from within LyX
• Source code viewer for instant LaTeX and DocBook view.
• SGML-tools support (DocBook DTDs)
• Literate programming support (noweb, Sweave)
• Support for export of PDF bookmarks and header information

[woodsmoke]

thanks but have you used it?

woodsmoke

[Snowhog]

Moi? Nope. That's your department.

[woodsmoke]

then i again ask for others who have used it to chime in.

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

I tried to use it 3 or 4 years ago. There were too many components to keep synchronized, and it is not as simple as just typing in a bunch of text and letting the interpreter format it. I decided I didn't want to learn a bunch of formatting commands, or the user interface which allowed me to insert them by clicking an Icon. For me, at the time, OpenOffice was a LOT easier to use and I could make my document look the way I wanted it to look. With LibraOffice I found that "Master Document" was the way to tie chapters together into an integrated whole.

[dmeyer]

Oh I do use it, I use it all the damn time. I just did a 270+ page research piece and Lyx was a fantastic companion. I use MS Word 2010 (Crossover) to type and and do grammar/spell checking and then copy paste into Lyx where I can add footnotes, margin notes, and do bibliography work. I do this in Word too so its a bit of effort duplication but I have a long list of personal reasons for my double approach. Lyx documents look incredibly stunning and it handles everything perfectly. The available templates are awesome but installing new ones can be a little painful. There is never document corruption and its great for handling massive projects. Another fantastic feature is how well you can insert equations, diagrams and graphs. I also happen to use Mathematica and you can use it as a backend for calculations etc.

Lyx is well worth the very tiny learning curve. Just make sure you have all the needed packages and learn the keyboard shortcuts. Oh and if you get frustrated just remember, its not WYSIWYG so don't get frustrated when it blocks you from doing some things. You do not need to learn LaTeX to use Lyx. It can enhance the experience but is absolutely not necessary (in the way a CLI isn't needed in a modern KDE distribution.) You won't look back.

[james147]

There is also kile, a kde latex editor. I have found it very useful in the past.

[woodsmoke]

Thanks for the replies guys and this one is of great interest to moi.

great for handling massive projects

woodsmoke

[dmeyer]

Kile is proper LaTeX whereas Lyx is more word processor like but has full LaTeX abilities when inserting LaTex code. Use Kile if you want to learn LaTeX the proper, hard way, use Lyx if you want the awesome shortcut method while still having the power of LaTeX. Go for Lyx, its uneatable.

[GreyGeek]

.... I just did a 270+ page research piece..... equations, diagrams and graphs. I also happen to use Mathematica and you can use it as a backend for calculations etc.....

Nothing like tweaking an old math teacher's interest.... may I ask what the topic of your research piece is?

[dmeyer]

Implementation of National Health Insurance in South Africa. I'm a South African but I study in the states. I took a research semester this year.

Apart from looking at traditional things such as legislative, administrative and political hurdles/forces, I've tried to focus on the economic impact in both the long and short term. Its very quantitive in that respect but I'm holding out for the relase of the 2011 Census data as I need it for my statistical models. Setting up the models took me the better part of two months but I learnt a lot. Most of the modelling was done with Sage (Its really brilliant with super easy syntax) but I often dipped into Mathematica when I had tackle some nasty differential equations. I tried to avoid Matlab and Mathematica as much as possible though because I'm trying to wean myself off propriety stuff although Matlab has no true FOSS competitor.

I absolutely love algebra and after getting a really good grounding in linear algebra I'm looking at moving to abstract algebra in a few months when I've got some time.

[woodsmoke]

dmeyer
If you don't mind, I'll mention to my classes that you like FOSS and for what you are using the application.

woodsmoke

[dmeyer]

Go ahead. I don't mind at all. I'm like FOSS principles but at the same time I like to get the job done. It just so happens that 90% of the time, FOSS tends to give me the best tools to accomplish my job. You should also remind them that a lot of colleges use linux distros for their computers. Caltech (my college) actually uses OpenSuse on the majority of machines and people love it when they give it a chance. Most of the professors use Linus or OSX and some even encourage it. Linux is an OS for the academic and scientific communities and really is fantastic once you get into it.

Lyx is excellent for math and science documents, Kontact is the perfect communication hub, Sage is incredibly powerful, Libre Office Draw is one of the best diagramming apps I've worked with and KDevelop is the best IDE I've worked with - period.

As an aside, I unfortunately still use MS Word, Powerpoint and rarely Excel 2010 because they are the best for the job. I think Libre Office is perfect for 95% of users, but for a power user like myself I need some of Office's capabilities.

[GreyGeek]

Implementation of National Health Insurance in South Africa. I'm a South African but I study in the states. I took a research semester this year.

Apart from looking at traditional things such as legislative, administrative and political hurdles/forces, I've tried to focus on the economic impact in both the long and short term. Its very quantitive in that respect but I'm holding out for the relase of the 2011 Census data as I need it for my statistical models. Setting up the models took me the better part of two months but I learnt a lot. Most of the modelling was done with Sage (Its really brilliant with super easy syntax) but I often dipped into Mathematica when I had tackle some nasty differential equations. I tried to avoid Matlab and Mathematica as much as possible though because I'm trying to wean myself off propriety stuff although Matlab has no true FOSS competitor.

I absolutely love algebra and after getting a really good grounding in linear algebra I'm looking at moving to abstract algebra in a few months when I've got some time.

Mathematical analysis and modeling is fun. Linear algebra via matrix math is an awesome tool which gives both the max and min at the same time. Thanks for sharing that info!

Sage is a great tool for most math needs ... I use the notebook() feature from my browser. It's under constant development and there is a web version on their site, but it isn't even close to the 470Mb version that one downloads to use locally. I was an early user of Mathmatica but abandon it when they wanted me to pay $1,500 to upgrade to the newest version (this was back in early 1990s).