But that inevitably involves applying some class-specific styles, which has a marginal benefit and requires a lot of work if done manually, and is also impossible to do automatically because LaTeX files are not data and are hard to parse, especially when working with the WYSIWYM is an approximation that must be made and covers 90%+ what you need to overcome the problems in non-intuitive plain LaTeX. One may still say that LyX can do the approximate rendering better. Therefore, LyX chose to render it approximately while preserving the document structures in a WYSIWYM way. And it's also very difficult to build a true real-time engine with full compatibility with LaTeX. That's because LaTeX doesn't support typesetting in real time, so it's impossible to build WYSIWYG based on LaTeX. And they might think LyX is WYSIWYM because the design and the developers are incapable.īut you really can't have both true WYSIWYG and nearly full LaTeX compatibility. Some people don't like WYSIWYM in LyX and prefer some truly WYSIWYG software, for example, TeXmacs, even though TeXmacs is not based on TeX. But LyX is not programmable, although there are many LyX functions to use and can be combined. Customizing the appearance, key bindings, and UI layouts are simple. The really great part is that you can easily use almost any LaTeX template in LyX with some simple setups. LyX has built-in support for some commonly used LaTeX templates, including the Beamer, and there are many people sharing their LyX templates on the Internet, but that's only part of it. Even if your needs don't fit into all existing ways of customization, you can still insert raw LaTeX command, or so-called evil red text (ERT).Ī large collection of templates are available. Although the built-in support is finite, LyX allows users to tell LyX how to display and render other environments and commands. However, some LaTeX knowledge is required for better customization of your document, just as what you do for plain LaTeX.Īs mentioned above, LyX has almost full LaTeX compatibility. And many frequently used LaTeX packages and settings are presented with a friendly GUI. The graphical interface is friendly and the manual is detailed and doesn't assume prior knowledge of LaTeX. No LaTeX knowledge is required for onboarding. Besides, the powerful math editor alone can be a good reason for adopting LyX in your workflow.Īnd here are some more awesome bits about LyX: And it also eliminates the need for the PDF previewing pane, avoiding all the problems caused by an extra pane. With the graphical interface, editing the document feels at home. LyX solved many problems I mentioned in the previous section. It's just an editor which is based on and has great support for LaTeX. So basically LyX is a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) GUI document editor based on LaTeX and supports a wide range of LaTeX concepts, commands, and environments, coming with an excellent equation editor. This results in world-class support for creation of mathematical content (via a fully integrated equation editor) and structured documents like academic articles, theses, and books. LyX combines the power and flexibility of TeX/LaTeX with the ease of use of a graphical interface. LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply their appearance (WYSIWYG). Every student who is trying to take LaTeX notes in a math-heavy lecture will soon get lost. Although LaTeX math becomes quite a standard, we have to admit that it's not an easy task to write and edit math in raw LaTeX code. Even if I got a larger screen, having a PDF to preview every so often is distracting, and syncing the scroll position of the LaTeX code and the PDF file is not smooth.Īnother source of pain is math editing. On the other hand, 1/2 of the screen is too small for larger equations and tables, which looks pretty bad when the line is wrapped. On the one hand, 1/2 of the screen is too small for the generated PDF file which is usually on A4 paper. The most annoying one for me is that splitting a pane on a small laptop screen is painful. The PDF preview is nice, but there are some problems with it. On the contrary, finding the related contents in rendered PDF is much easier and quicker. It's a mixture of commands and contents, and it's missing visual clues for the document structure. It's obvious why nearly all those LaTeX editors have a preview pane of the rendered PDF file: the raw LaTeX code is not intuitive. Many LaTeX users are using similar software for writing documents. Pains with plain LaTeX #īelow is a screenshot of the LaTeX workshop. LyX is a great software you can use to replace those plain-text-based LaTeX editors.
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