Stuff I will use - LyX and LaTeX

A few hours ago, I discovered the future (and past...) of awesome document editing. Right now I'm in the process of saying goodbye to both Microsoft Office and Open Office.org for something which in my opinion is way better.

LaTeX

LaTeX is a document preparation system. It is a format whose purpose is to give the author a WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) way of doing things instead of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). Most document editors (like Ms Office and Open Office) go for the other method and require you actually format documents instead of writing them. LaTeX allows you to focus on writing the contents of your document and organize it with common items like images, chapters, sections, subsections, lists, tables, equations and loads more. These are then processed by the editor and are arranged at the end without disturbing the author in the process of his work.

LyX

LyX is the user friendly version of LaTeX. When writing LaTeX documents, you're pretty much writing code, because you have to add certain parameters before paragraphs and such. LyX is not quite LaTeX, there are few features that each system has that the other one doesn't, but they are almost identical in concept and internal format (as far as I know). LyX brings the power of LaTeX to a GUI and even with some differences in format, it also allows you to type LaTeX directives.

What is soooo cool about the system? This is what I find amazing until now, and I expect the list to grow:

• Chapter, Section, Subsection, Subsubsection, Paragraph, Subparagraph system is awesom. It automatically numbers them even if one part is deleted or moved, it automatically creates a Table of Contents which can be added in the document and so on. (You can also add unnumbered sections).
• Consistency in format. I am always bothered with choosing fonts and stuff in Office editors, here everything is simple and there are few common formats that make sense (Enchanced text, Code...).
• Labels and references. You can add a label to a section for example, and refer to it somewhere, where it will print the section number, the page on which it is and so on, even if these move. There are similar labels for Biographical references and so on.
• Notes. You can add notes, and these will not be printed and can be collapsed while editing
• Footnotes. These will be placed at the bottom of the page and can be collapsed like notes.
• Index entries. You know those large indexes at the end of the book? You just add an index entry somewhere in the text with a keyword and if an index is added at the end of the book it will contain this entry with a reference to the page.
• Designed for PDF and DVI formats which are both device independent (and way more professional that god forsaken .doc's - people... please never use .doc's, at least export the PDF).
• Math expressions. That's actually the best thing LaTeX is known for. I've seen several formulas online in LaTeX format and at first I thought that's all it does.

Now you might think "Hey, I want deeper control in the format of my documents". Well there's two very good answers to this:

1. No, you don't. There are so many different document types and formats here for articles, reports, books, letters, math articles, science reports and so on and all of them are standardized.
2. If you still don't like it, well everything is still customizable, so make it the way you want

This has been my best recent discovery and has changed my perspective of what a document editor is supposed to do. I still have to get around a bit with more advanced features but right now it seems Open Office.org is getting kicked out. LyX is also cross-platform and open source (big pluses here).

Enjoy everyone.