2

Possible Duplicate:
Can I think of LyX as a LaTeX IDE?

I know that LyX can import and export LaTeX. But e.g. comments and formatting of the LaTeX code is lost every time. If I send my text for some small corrections to my co-worker, this is really a problem. Is there a different solution or work-a-round?

LyX has become a really good program. I think this is really the crucial point, why often you can't use it.

Community
  • 1
lumbric
  • 4,269
  • Do not use LyX http://meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1883/is-lyx-an-editor-which-should-be-recommended – N3buchadnezzar Jul 13 '12 at 08:17
  • @N3buchadnezzar Well, thanks for your suggestion. This is what I'm going to do, if I can't find any other solution. But I'd prefer LyX (I don't think this is the right place to discuss why). – lumbric Jul 13 '12 at 09:02
  • @lumbric I'd recommend using Texmaker (http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/). It's not a WYSIWYG editor so you have to write LaTeX code, but with its quick build function you'll see any changes almost on-the-fly on the right pane if the internal viewer is turned on. – szantaii Jul 13 '12 at 11:24
  • 1
    Short answer: No, see Can I think of LyX as a LaTeX IDE, which comes close to an exact duplicate. – Daniel Jul 13 '12 at 12:34
  • 1
    LyX notes are lost, but LaTeX comments should not be lost. You can easily convert all of your LyX notes into LaTeX comments using this command in the mini-buffer: inset-forall Note:Note inset-modify note Note Comment – scottkosty Jul 14 '12 at 03:41

1 Answers1

4

Not the most elegant solution, but what I do in these situations is the following:

  • I send plain tex file to the other party and let them do whatever editing.

  • upon receiving the text file back I do this:

    1. import the received tex file in to a new lyx file
    2. compare my old version and the new received one using Menu/Tools/Compare
    3. manually backport all the edits from the new file to my old file, until they are identical, or in the desired form.

This leads to some manual overhead in maintaining my LyX file in sync with the co-author's plain tex file, but in practice it turned out not to be a big problem. Often when I find that the re-imported document is fine in terms of layout and edits, I simply replace the old one with the new one. Also, if I find that something in the layout is inconsistent and the document import does not deal with it properly (e.g., optional short titles in definitions), this can be fixed in the layout by layout modification so as to require a proper number of arguments.

Regarding loosing formatting, this was never a big deal to my co-authors, except for demands not to break lines, but instead rely on text-wrap at the end of lines. This can be helped with Menu/Tools/Preferences/Output/General/Output LIne Length.

Well, usefulness of an advice like this of course depends on the particular modus operandi of you vs. your co-authors so YMMV.

walkmanyi
  • 710