LyX
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). LyX combines the power and flexibility of TeX/LaTeX with the ease of use of a GUI.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application types
EUPlatforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Flathub
- Haiku
- Chrome OS
Features
Support for LaTeX- Create PDF files
- LaTeX Editor
- Spell Checking
- Works Offline
- Ad-free
- Equation editor
- LaTeX Math
- Typing in TeX itself
- Tex
- Desktop Publishing
Tags
- scientific
- document-processing
- Xfce
- book-writing
LyX News & Activities
Recent News
Recent activities
prashu49pj added LyX as alternative to LaTeXWriter- babsors liked LyX
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What is LyX?
The approach used by LyX 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. In addition, staples of scientific authoring such as reference list and index creation come standard. But you can also use LyX to create a letter or a novel or a theater play or film script. A broad array of ready, well-designed document layouts are built in.
LyX is for people who want their writing to look great, right out of the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting details, “finger painting” font attributes or futzing around with page boundaries. You just write. On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed output — or richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced — looks like nothing else.
Although in some respects its user interface resembles that of conventional word processors (like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, etc.), LyX uses LaTeX to process its documents and generate the final output. It can thus be used for writing LaTeX documents the easy way.
LyX information
Developed by
Matthias Ettrich Licensing
Open Source (GPL-2.0) and Free product.Alternatives
45 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
Comments and Reviews
Incredibly satisfying to use. If it is not, RTFM.
For “View [PDF (pdflatex)]” to work one needs to make sure the proper packages are installed, which could be quite confusing for a beginner. E.g., on my Manjaro system I need: texlive-basic texlive-latex texlive-latexextra.
I was trying to get out of using MS Office for math work, which is not really the Office sweet spot. An interesting alternative was raw LaTeX, but it was too raw. I found myself dealing with the technicalities of the TeX format instead of expressing the thoughts and ideas. So I looked around on the web and found LyX. So far it is as advertised, it does its stated job of "What You See is What you Mean". And they have really done a good job of providing an editing tool for equations and academic papers. In fact it is very impressive for a purely open source tool with mainly academic support. LyX seems like a very mature platform, with several decades of investment and a solid community. It has all the features I need for writing scientific papers and many that I didn't know I need but still found very useful. One warning though: it is for geeks. It pays to understand the LaTeX format which does effect the behavior of the UI. And configuration is definitely geeky. So is the support community. Small foibles and complaints: (1) Search should highlight the line that is found, not merely the actual found item, since it is hard to notice the highlighted item in a full page of text (2) Try creating some boldface and then removing it with "dissolve". It sort of works but not really. Usability should be improved. Overall great work and I will continue to use LyX. Review is of version 2.3.0 on Windows 10.
The GUI looks cool, and the concept is interesting, but how many LaTeX users use it because they like the output? Many of us use it because we have no choice (academic publications require the math and styles forced by journals, conferences, etc.). LyX didn't work when I tried it in this context. Beware before you download/install the 200 MB!
There are many reasons why LyX would or would not work on your particular system (and many of these issues are related to LaTeX, actually). The proper avenue to seek help is the lyx-users ML. As for the download size, LyX itself is more skinny than that; but since it depends on a lot of external tools and converters, a bundle installer for a fresh installation (on Windows) is indeed a big download. But remember that most of this download is actually the included MiKTeX LaTeX distribution, so nothing to blame LyX for. :)
This program is nice, but doesn't allow editing of the TeX source code. This gets frustrating when I know how to do something in LaTeX but can't find it in the program.
It's possible to insert TeX code going to Insert\TeX Code or Ctrl+L and then writing in the box the code or you can edit your preamble using LaTeX/TeX code going to Document\Configuration\LaTeX preamble.
Our office uses LyX and even the elders could change their habits to master it and we are very satisfied. If you are tired of word and its friends, change your office work with Lyx. You won't regret.