Say no to formatting spaces and InterAMI

Introduction every person with a computer sooner or later comes to editing documents.
But then, as they say, there are options.


People can use the computer only as the typewriter, which has all the formatting tools are reduced to inserting extra spaces and carriage return at the desired interval.
And maybe learn how to format the document using at least the required minimum spaces the functionality of the editor.

Those who are tired to see/pick out from the text, extra spaces, who need to ensure the joint development of the document stored in git/svn and many other useful — you can click button below to read a little more about the wonderful editor, Lyx.


Let's start with an introduction:
Lyx (liks) is a WYSIWYM the editor (not to be confused with WYSIWYG). Ie basic is not a visual representation of the document on the screen, and its contents, which can be formatted as it should be in a particular place.

Liks is a free open source application is released under GPL v2, cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux/BSD, including unofficial ports under such specificity as OS/2 and Haiku).
In fact, even the Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice do not have packages for such diversity.


Casting a glance at the main screen Liksa, you can mark it a good (but not perfect as always) localization. Also there is the Ukrainian language of the interface (but not, for example, Belarus). However, this does not affect the language support within the document — this is no problem.

The default screen is not cluttered with unnecessary panels that can be turned on/off when needed.

However, as in the joke "- the difference is only 7m sign the letter, but what's the difference" — before starting to edit the document, it is desirable to select the class (format) of the document depend on two things — how to format a document and how it will in the end look like.

Regarding "formatting" — in contrast to the presentation of Microsoft, which has already become a classic, in Licks a set of paragraph styles is limited to exactly those styles that are listed in the original class (the template) of the document.
For example in one of the standard classes "article" level of nestings of paragraphs are indicated through the chain:
Part, section, subsection, podotrasl, paragraph and sub-paragraph. Paragraph may be numbered or not numbered.

Actually is a tough division, assigned to the document class, distinguishes Liks style WYSIWYG where you can ponadelat styles depending on the weather in Singapore and quotations on milk in the neighboring villages.

The document class can be changed later, but in any case have to make an effort to make the document look "new style". For starters, you can use the standard article, and shortly, you come to upgrade or create their own styles. For the latter, by the way will have to work hard because of the lack of visuality, developing your own style is impossible without deep knowledge of the text format of Lyx &LaTeX.

So we chose a writing style and begin to write the text. And the weird thing is... I Want to leave a bit of space for the title page and to retreat to the next. The truth is that we all once did? However Liks does not insert extra newline.

Try to write one paragraph. Behind him the next. Now go between them — press Enter — voila — there's an empty space. Another one? Not, does not. Go to another place. But what is it? Liks deleted empty paragraph! Sadly, where my Yatran???

Here we come to the fact that in order to format the document there is only one method to choose the right style of the paragraph where the template document is pre-marked with how many points, or millimeters of indent from the right edge and from the previous paragraph. Step left, step right — not the execution — nowhere to go.

Of course not everything is catastrophic — if necessary, you can put the vertical space exactly as long as necessary.

With other Goodies, too, all right — the images, the autobuild table of contents and index. Cross-links work even if you could generate a PDF (only if generate using PDFLATEX and HYPERREF to include in the document properties).

Well, some of the additional features and utilities this editor:
The internal storage format of your. The document file is a text file, which is not compact (in 2.0 there is an option to store in a compressed format).
At the same time, introducing all figures should be in separate files, but in the editor they are displayed so you can see what and where is inserted.

However, text format document storage is a huge plus to anyone who wants to organize joint editing of a document by several people with storage in a versioning system like GIT/SVN.
This, in itself Lyx natively support the VCS, and support for SVN (via an external utility).

A separate word should be said about content management — anyone who had to reorganize the document with the transfer of entire chapters and sections in a different position, had to face a long and tedious operation highlight the desired piece. And if suddenly something happens with the numbering, it is easier to roll back a couple of steps back, than to correct.
In Lyx to the migrations of the heads and change the padding to fit from the other end, open the document outline, and then directly to her, choosing the desired part, section, or paragraph — just move them up/down or change the level with all nested paragraphs.

Opportunities of this editor a lot and there is no need to result here all documentation that can be read on the website.

In summary:
Actually use Lyx as the tool for documentation within the company and was due primarily to the fact that the joint work on documents led to the fact that each pressed the buttons as wanted and where wanted. Suffered from this paperwork.
The presence of the storage capabilities of SVN helped us to be able to identify who made a mistake in the document, and means SVN to fix these errors, reversing changes in document, which had been made half a year ago.
It should be noted that the initial part of the document is taken from one place (title page, privacy information, etc.), the other part of the document is edited by different people, speaking different languages, and the third part is going to do automatically (documentation from the source code, configuration and status of servers, etc.) and it all nicely collected in a single PDF that can be downloaded by clicking a few buttons in CustomerCare.

I hope that this article will be interesting for those who are looking for a similar solution for storage and processing.

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru