NAME¶
LyX - A Document Processor
SYNOPSIS¶
lyx [
command-line switches ] [
name[.lyx] ... ]
DESCRIPTION¶
LyX is too complex to be described completely in the "man" page
format. If your system is properly configured, you can access the full
documentation within
LyX under the Help menu.
LyX is a document preparation system. It excels at letting you create
complex technical and scientific articles with mathematics, cross-references,
bibliographies, indices, etc. It is very good at documents of any length in
which the usual processing abilities are required: automatic sectioning and
pagination, spellchecking, and so forth. It can also be used to write a letter
to your mom, though granted, there are probably simpler programs available for
that. It is definitely not the best tool for creating banners, flyers, or
advertisements, though with some effort all these can be done, too. Some
examples of what it is used for: memos, letters, dissertations and theses,
lecture notes, seminar notebooks, conference proceedings, software
documentation, books (on PostgreSQL, remote sensing, cryptology, fictional
novels, poetry, and even a children's book or two), articles in refereed
scientific journals, scripts for plays and movies, business proposals... you
get the idea.
Currently,
LyX uses the Qt4 library as a toolkit.
LyX should run
everywhere, where this library runs. This is on all major Unix platforms as
well as Windows and Mac OS X (which actually is a unix platform).
OPTIONS¶
LyX supports the following command-line switches.
- -help
- summarizes LyX usage
- -version
- provides version information on the build of LyX.
- -sysdir directory
- sets system directory. Normally not needed.
- -userdir directory
- sets user directory. Needed if you want to use LyX with
different lyxrc settings.
- -geometry WxH+X+Y
- set geometry of the main window.
- -dbg feature[,feature...]
- where feature is a name or number. Use " lyx
-dbg" to see the list of available debug features.
- -x [--execute] command
- where command is a lyx command.
- -e [--export] fmt
- where fmt is the export format of choice (latex, pdflatex,
lualatex, xelatex, xhtml, text, lyx). Note that the order of -e and -x
switches matters.
- -i [--import] fmt file.xxx
- where fmt is the import format of choice and file.xxx is
the file to be imported.
- -f [--force-overwrite] what
- where what is is either "all",
"main" or " none". Specify "
all" to allow overwriting all files during a batch export,
" main" to allow overwriting the main file only, or
" none" to disallow overwriting any file. When this
switch is followed by anything else other than " all",
" main" or "none", the behavior is as if
" all" was specified, but what follows is left on the
command line for further processing.
- -n [--no-remote]
- open documents passed as arguments in a new instance, even
if another instance of LyX is already running.
- -r [--remote]
- by using the lyxpipe, ask an already running instance of
LyX to open the documents passed as arguments and then exit. If the
lyxpipe is not set up or is not working, a new instance is created and
execution continues normally.
- -batch
- causes LyX to run the given commands without opening a GUI
window. Thus, something like:
lyx -batch -x "buffer-print printer default dvips" myfile.lyx
will cause LyX to print myfile.lyx to the default printer, using dvips and
the default print settings (which, of course, have to have been configured
already).
ENVIRONMENT¶
- LYX_DIR_20x
- can be used to specify which system directory to use.
The system directory is determined by searching for the file
"chkconfig.ltx". Directories are searched in this order:
1) -sysdir command line parameter
2) LYX_DIR_20x environment variable
3) Maybe <path of binary>/TOP_SRCDIR/lib
4) <path of binary>/../share/<name of binary>/
5) hardcoded lyx_dir (at build time: /usr/share/lyx)
- LYX_USERDIR_20x
- can be used to specify which user directory to use.
The user directory is, in order of precedence:
1) -userdir command line parameter
2) LYX_USERDIR_20x environment variable
3) $HOME/.<name of binary> if no explicit setting is made
- LYX_LOCALEDIR
- can be used to tell LyX where to look for the translations
of its GUI strings in other languages.
- LYX_FORCE_OVERWRITE
- can be used to change the default behavior when exporting
from command line.
By default, LyX overwrites the main file when exporting from command line but
not the ancillary files. This behavior can be changed by setting this
environment variable, which relieves the need of using the -f switch. Allowed
values are either "
all", "
main" or
"
none", with same meaning as for the -f switch.
FILES¶
~/.lyx/preferences Personal configuration file
~/.lyx/lyxrc.defaults Personal autodetected configuration file
LIBDIR/lyxrc.dist System wide configuration file
LIBDIR/configure.py Updates LyX if config has changed
LIBDIR/bind/ Keybindings
LIBDIR/clipart/ Clipart pictures
LIBDIR/doc/ Documentation in LyX format.
LIBDIR/examples/ Example documents
LIBDIR/images/ Images used as icons or in popups
LIBDIR/kbd/ Keyboard mappings
LIBDIR/layouts/ Layout descriptions
LIBDIR/templates/ Templates for documents
LIBDIR/tex/ Extra TeX files
LIBDIR is the system directory. This was at build time /usr/share/lyx.
SEE ALSO¶
tex2lyx(1),
latex(1).
Full documentation in either native
LyX or postscript format.
BUGS/LIMITATIONS¶
There are still some bugs in
LyX. To report one, read if possible the
Introduction found under the Help menu in LyX. You'll find detailed info on
submitting bug reports there. If you can't do that, send details to the LyX
Developers mailing list lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org, or use the LyX bug tracker at
http://www.lyx.org/trac/wiki/BugTrackerHome. Don't forget to mention which
version you are having problems with!
LaTeX import is still not perfect and may produce buggy *.lyx files.
Consult the
tex2lyx documentation.
AUTHORS¶
LyX is Copyright (C) 1995 by Matthias Ettrich, 1995-2010 LyX Team