![]() ![]() Yet I was interested enough to try it, and here are my first impressions.įor testing, and for writing this article, I use an Intel i486sx system running at 33 MHz (yes, LyX runs somewhat sluggishly, but at my job, on a 75 MHz Pentium, it flies), with 8 MB of memory and some 1.5 GB of Linux-dedicated disc storage. It was in no way perfect or complete not even all of the most common LaTeX features were supported. Other volunteers in several countries joined the effort and, a year ago, a first beta release, 0.10.7, was published on the Web. Ettrich's first attempt was called Lyrix, but the name had to be changed to LyX for legal reasons. Also LaTeX needed an editor that was easy to use and showed you interactively, on the screen, how the document was to be structured and then, on your order, generated the LaTeX code containing all the embedded commands needed for the typesetting job. Several years ago, Matthias Ettrich from Tьbingen University's computer science department, decided to do something about it. Everybody uses interactive, graphic tools, that show you here and now what your becoming web page looks like while you write it. Have you ever wondered how many web pages would be published in the world, if they all had to be edited by hand in raw HyperText Mark-up Language? Not many, I daresay. We have all heard of the mark-up language of the Web, HTML. (If only my Word for Windows would agree to produce the same page layout for my papers at home as it does at the job!) Many science journals also distributed macro packages for TeX or LaTeX to help people write their articles in the prescribed standard format thus, TeX became also an exchange standard for scientific manuscripts. But mathematicians loved it! The beauty of LaTeX is, that it allows you to specify on a fairly abstract level the structure of a document, without bogging you down in details of the actual formatting. And writing formulas was a real pain in the butt. ![]() Until recently, the only way to use this software was by manually editing the source code of your document using the defined mark-up language - the manual opened by the side of the keyboard. You only have to look at a LaTeX-produced document, especially mathematics, to see the difference. This is not WP any more, this is typesetting. Both of these contain very conventional word processing modules.ĭonald Knuth, and LaTeX, an extension written in TeX's macro language, from the hands of Leslie Lamport - both systems further extended by a host of volunteers - have existed for over a decade: free, publicly available, and good, very good. Applixware, a complete office suite which received very good reviews in a recent article in Linux Journal, and the freeware-like Star Office package. It is only in recent years that the situation has begun to improve, with some good packages - commercial, to be sure - becoming available to UNIX in general, and to Linux in particular. Unfortunately, until just a couple of years ago, this remark was all too appropriate, especially where word processing was concerned. There is no good applications software for it". When you tell people that you are using Linux, their first comment often is " yes, a fine and interesting operating system for programmers and scientists, but not for ordinary people. TeX without Tears!: Historical introduction ![]() To the raw power of this world class typesetting software - while presentingĪ face to the user deceptively like, e.g., Microsoft's Word for Windows. Interactive, visual shell for LaTeX running under X, giving finger-tip access ![]() TeX without Tears! By Martin an international volunteer project that started off in Tьbingen, Germany, is already revolutionizing Linux word processing. ![]()
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