LyX

Infobox_Software
name = L_YX



caption = Screenshot of LyX 1.5 under Windows
developer = The LyX Team
programming language = C++
latest_release_version = 1.5.6
latest_release_date = release date|2008|7|28
latest_preview_version = 1.6.0rc2
latest_preview_date = August 28, 2008
operating_system = Cross-platform
status = Active
language = Multilingual (23)
genre = Document processor
license = GNU General Public License
website = http://www.lyx.org

$mathbf\{L\}!\{\}\_mathbf\{displaystyle\; Y\}!mathbf\{X\}$ (written as LyX in plain text) is a document processor following the self-coined "what you see is what you mean" paradigm (WYSIWYM), as opposed to the WYSIWYG ideas used by word processors. This means that the user only has to care about the structure and content of the text, while the formatting is done by LaTeX, an advanced typesetting system. LyX is designed for authors who want professional output with a minimum of effort and without becoming specialists in typesetting. The job of typesetting is done mostly by the computer, following a predefined set of rules called a style, and not by the author. Specific knowledge of the LaTeX document processing system is not necessary but may improve editing with LyX significantly for specialist purposes.

Since LyX largely functions as a front-end to the LaTeX typesetting system, it can handle documents ranging from books, notes, and theses, to articles in refereed journals, letters, and anything else LaTeX can handle. LyX also supports right-to-left languages like Arabic [cite web|url=http://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/Arabic|title=Arabic support for LyX|] , Persian [cite web|url=http://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/Persian|title=Persian support for LyX|] , and Hebrew [cite web|url=http://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/Hebrew|title=Hebrew support for LyX|] , and it has substantial support for bidirectional writing. Prior to 1.5.0, there was a separate release that supported Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages, but these have been incorporated into LyX since then.

Although LyX is popular among technical authors and scientists for its advanced mathematical modes, it is increasingly used by social scientists and humanists for its excellent bibliographic database integration and ability to manage multiple files. LyX has become especially popular among self-publishers because LyX combines the ease of use of a word processor with the typesetting abilities of LaTeX.

The LyX document processor is available for various operating systems, including UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2, Windows, and Linux. LyX can be redistributed and modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License and is thus Free Software.

Features

*GUI with menus
*Automatically-numbered headings, titles, and paragraphs, with table of contents
*Text is laid out according to standard typographic rules, including indents, spacing, and hyphenation
*Standard operations like cut/paste, spell-checking (using GNU Aspell)
*Notes
*Textclasses and templates similar to the documentclass [arguments] {theclass} command in LaTeX
*BibTeX Support
*Table Editor (WYSIWYG)
*Math Editor (WYSIWYG)
*Ability to import various common text formats
*Ability to export the document to DocBook SGML, thus opening the way to document processing with SGML tools, like Jade, Openjade, pdfTeX and pdfJadeTeX, that make it possible to produce consistently formatted documents in HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF, TXT and other formats from one LyX source (single-source publishing), see [http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/ Document processing with LyX and SGML]

History

*Matthias Ettrich started developing a shareware program called Lyrix in 1995.
*Soon after, it was announced on USENET where it received a great deal of attention during the subsequent years.
*Shortly after the initial release, Lyrix was renamed to Lyx due to a name-clash with proprietary software (a word processor by Santa Cruz Operation). It was released under the GNU General Public License, which opened the project to the open-source community. The name LyX was chosen because of the file-suffix '.lyx' for the Lyrix-files.
*LyX 1.0.0 was released in 1999.
*LyX 1.3.0 was released on February 7, 2003.
*LyX 1.4.0 was released on March 8, 2006.
*LyX 1.5.0 was released on July 27, 2007.

Pronunciation

According to the project's wiki, the developers pronounce LyX as IPA2|lɪks or IPA| [lʏks] . [ [http://wiki.lyx.org/FAQ/Pronunciation FAQ/Pronunciation] , LyX Wiki. Retrieved 4 April 2008.]

See also

*List of word processors
*Comparison of word processors
* Qt 4 toolkit, which is used for the user interface in LyX [http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/NewInLyX15#toc13] .

References

External links

* [http://www.lyx.org/Home Official LyX Website]
* [http://wiki.lyx.org/ LyX Wiki]
* [http://www.lyx.org/PressAboutLyX Reviews of LyX]
* [http://www.lyx.org/donations.php Donations and funding]