1What is LyX? 2 3 LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to 4 writing based on the structure of your documents, not their 5 appearance. It is released under a Free Software / Open Source 6 license. 7 8 LyX is for people that write and want their writing to look great, 9 right out of the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting 10 details, 'finger painting' font attributes or futzing around with 11 page boundaries. You just write. In the background, Prof. Knuth's 12 legendary TeX typesetting engine makes you look good. 13 14 On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed output 15 --- or richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced --- 16 looks like nothing else. Gone are the days of industrially bland 17 .docs, all looking similarly not-quite-right, yet coming out 18 unpredictably different on different printer drivers. Gone are the 19 crashes 'eating' your dissertation the evening before going to 20 press. 21 22 LyX is stable and fully featured. It is a multi-platform, fully 23 internationalized application running natively on Unix/Linux and 24 the Macintosh and modern Windows platforms. 25 26What do I need to run LyX? 27 28 Either: 29 * a Unix-like system (including Windows with Cygwin) 30 * Windows 2000 or newer 31 * Mac OS 10.4 or newer 32 33 A decent LaTeX2e installation (e.g. TeX Live for Linux, MikTeX for 34 Windows). 35 36 Python 2.7 to convert old LyX files and for helper scripts. 37 Note: Python 3 (3.3 or later) support is work in progress. 38 39How does the LyX version scheme work? 40 41 LyX uses a contiguous numbering scheme for versions, where a 42 number "2.x.y" indicates a stable release '2.x', maintenance 43 release 'y'. In other words, LyX 2.2.0 was the first stable 44 release in the 2.2-series of LyX. At the time of writing, the 45 latest maintenance release in the 2.2-series is LyX 2.2.4. 46 47 Please note that maintenance releases are designed primarily to 48 fix bugs, and that the file format will _never_ change due to a 49 maintenance release. 50 51 In addition to the stable releases and maintenance releases, some 52 users may want to give a ''release candidate'' a try. This is a 53 release that should be stable enough for daily work, but yet may 54 be potentially unstable. If no major bugs are found, the release 55 candidate is soon released as the first stable release in a new 56 series. To summarize, there are three possible types of file names 57 that are of interest to normal users: 58 59 lyx-2.3.0.tar.gz -- stable release, first in the 2.3-series 60 lyx-2.2.4.tar.gz -- fourth maintenance release of LyX 2.2 61 lyx-2.4.0rc1.tar.gz -- potentially unstable release candidate 62 63 Note that the goal is not parallel development as for the Linux 64 kernel --- the team is too small to afford that --- but rather to 65 include all the simple and safe bug fixes. This is so that the 66 maintenance burden on us is not too high, and so that system 67 administrators can install new releases without fear. Experience 68 shows that these releases will contain a few new features, and 69 that the bulk of the patches will be documentation updates. 70 71 If you get the source from Git, the version string will look like 72 one of: 73 74 2.3.1dev -- this is the stable branch on which maintenance 75 release 2.3.1 will eventually be tagged. 76 2.4.0dev -- this is the main branch on which stable 77 release 2.4.0 will eventually be tagged. 78 79What's new? 80 81 Read NEWS. 82 83How do I upgrade from an earlier LyX version? 84 85 Read the file UPGRADING for info on this subject. 86 87What do I need to compile LyX from the source distribution? 88 89 * A good C++ compiler. Development is being done mainly with 90 gcc/g++, but some others work also. As of LyX 2.3.0, you need 91 at least gcc 4.6.x. 92 93 * The Qt library, at least version 4.8.0. For all features 94 newer versions (e.g. Qt 5.6) are recommended. 95 96 Read the file "INSTALL" for more information on compiling. 97 98Okay, I've installed LyX. What now? 99 100 Once you've installed it, and everything looks fine, go read 101 the "Introduction" item under the Help menu. You should follow 102 the instructions there, which tell you to read (or at least skim) 103 the Tutorial. After that, you should also read "Help>LaTeX 104 configuration" which provides info on your LaTeX configuration 105 as LyX sees it. You might be missing a package or two that you'd 106 like to have. 107 108 User-level configuration is possible via the Tools>Preferences menu. 109 110Does LyX have support for non-English speakers/writers/readers? 111 112 Yes. LyX supports writing in many languages, including 113 right-to-left languages like Arabic or Hebrew. 114 115 Menus and error messages have been translated to many languages. 116 For the status of the different translations, see 117 http://www.lyx.org/I18n 118 119 Keymaps can ease typing in many languages. 120 121Internet resources of relevance to LyX 122 123 The LyX homepage contains valuable information about LyX and the 124 various LyX mailing lists, as well as links to mirrors and other 125 LyX homepages around the world: 126 http://www.lyx.org/ 127 128 The LyX Wiki is the place where users can share information on 129 setting up and using LyX. 130 http://wiki.lyx.org/ 131 132 The main LyX archive site: 133 ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/ 134 135 The LyX Development page has information about the development 136 effort. LyX is under Git version control, so you can get the very 137 latest sources from there at any time. 138 http://www.lyx.org/Development 139 140How do I submit a bug report? 141 142 If possible, read the Introduction found under the Help menu in LyX. 143 You'll find detailed info on submitting bug reports there. 144 145 If you can't do that, send details to the LyX Developers' mailing 146 list, or use the LyX bug tracker at 147 http://www.lyx.org/trac/wiki/BugTrackerHome . 148 Don't forget to mention which version you are having problems with! 149 150How can I participate in the development of LyX? 151 152 Any help with the development of LyX is greatly appreciated --- 153 after all, LyX wouldn't be what it is today without the help 154 of volunteers. We need your help! 155 156 If you want to work on LyX, you should contact the developer's 157 mailing list for discussion on how to do your stuff. LyX is being 158 cleaned up, and therefore it's important to follow some rules. 159 Read about those rules in development/Code_rules/. 160 161 If you don't know C++, there are many other ways to 162 contribute. Write documentation. Help to internationalize LyX 163 by translating documentation or menus/error messages, or by 164 writing a new keymap. Write a new textclass. Find bugs (but 165 please read the list of known bugs first). Contribute money. 166 Or just offer feature suggestions (but please read the online 167 TODO list first). 168 169Thank you for trying LyX. We appreciate your feedback in the mailing 170lists. 171 172The LyX Team. 173