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I will just be using it for math if that matters. Thank you for your help.

Mohammed Shahid
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    Welcome to TeX.se. This is really an opinion based question which will likely be closed. Also, most people here are quite biased against LyX, but I know it has many happy users. My experience with students who started with LyX is that they had a harder time learning things, partially because fewer people use it and so getting help is a bit harder, and partially because many things you might end up wanting to do require some knowledge of LaTeX anyway. So I generally recommend starting with LaTeX not LyX. – Alan Munn Jul 31 '18 at 20:45
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    I recommend learning LaTeX well first, and then deciding if LyX is right for you. See my answer here: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/197773/12212 In the future, for questions like these, please give as many details as possible about what your background is, what your goals are, what your time frame is, etc. – scottkosty Jul 31 '18 at 20:46
  • Sorry about that. So I am a college student majoring in applied and pure math. I plan on going to grad school and figured that LaTex is something I should learn before then. As for time frame, I still have a few years before I would need to know LaTex. I would just like to get a head start on it. Right now I would mainly just use it to type notes in class as well as homework just to get a hang of it, but using LaTex isn't mandatory for either of those things. – Mohammed Shahid Jul 31 '18 at 20:57
  • In that case I would definitely recommend you learn LaTeX first. LaTeX has quite a steep learning curve and LyX can help make it much less steep in the beginning. But for many LyX users there comes a point at which knowledge about LaTeX is required when the WYSIWYG approach falls short. If you are only doing very basic stuff that point may never come and you may be very happy with LyX, but chances are you need to do some more intricate stuff at some point in your career. If you have left learning LaTeX up to that point things may get messy. – moewe Jul 31 '18 at 21:10
  • So start with LaTeX, have a look at LyX when you understand the basics (and a bit more) and then decide whether you like it or not. Especially since you are not under time pressure you can take some time to learn LaTeX properly. Read a good LaTeX book. Don't just take the first tutorial you find on the web, don't believe anything random people on the web tell you about TeX, play around with it... – moewe Jul 31 '18 at 21:10
  • @MohammedShahid Thanks for the extra info. I agree with what moewe wrote. It's great you're giving yourself some time before you need it. That way, you can learn LaTeX properly. Doing so will really pay off in the long-term. – scottkosty Jul 31 '18 at 21:24
  • @moewe do you have a particular editor that you would recommend? As well as a good book for beginners to learn LaTex? Again, I would mainly use it for mathematics. – Mohammed Shahid Jul 31 '18 at 23:32
  • See https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/11/what-are-good-learning-resources-for-a-latex-beginner?s=1|0.0000. The editor doesn't matter and depends on what you like, what OS you use, what DE you use etc. (David will tell you to use emacs, whereas I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.) Download three or four editors and experiment or start with the one which comes with your TeX distribution, if you use Win or Mac. – cfr Aug 01 '18 at 01:31
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    Possible duplicate of What are good learning resources for a LaTeX beginner? – cfr Aug 01 '18 at 01:31
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    following up on what @moewe and others have said, don't wait until you're writing your dissertation to learn latex! there are quite a few questions in this forum from users who have done just that, and sometimes it's almost too late to help them when they run into a problem. become familiar with your tools before you really need to use them. – barbara beeton Aug 03 '18 at 17:39

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