man pages for lyx
Version 1.0 Last change: October 1998
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 modern approach of writing documents with a com-
puter which breaks with the tradition of the obsolete type-
writer concept. It is designed for people who wants a pro-
fessional output with a minimum of time effort, without
becoming specialists in typesetting. Compared to common word
processors, LyX will increase the productivity a lot, since
most of the typesetting will be done by the computer, not
the author. With LyX the author can concentrate on the con-
tents of his writing, since the computer will take care of
the look. Read more about this concept in the online docu-
mentation under the Help menu.
Currently, LyX uses the XForms library as a toolkit. LyX
should run everywhere, where XForms runs. This is on all
major Unix platforms as well as PC platforms, including Sun,
SGI, HP, DEC Alpha/OSF, IBM RS6000, Convex, Cray,
i386/Linux, Alpha/Linux, i386/FreeBSD, i386/NetBSD,
DecSystem(mips)/Ultrix and others. Also an OS/2 XFree port
has been running.
OPTIONS
LyX supports the following command-line switches: (most of
these can also be specified as X resources, for instance in
.Xdefaults):
-help summarizes LyX usage
-sysdir directory
sets system directory. Normally not needed.
-width x
the width of the main window in LyX.
-height y
the height of the main window in LyX.
-xpos x
the x position of the main window in LyX.
-ypos y
the y position of the main window in LyX. Notice, you
have to specify both -xpos and -ypos to obtain the
desired effect. Negative positions are ignored. If no
valid position is given, the main window is centered.
-dbg debug-level
where debug-level is a sum of debugging options. Use
"lyx -dbg 65535 -help" to see the different flags.
-Reverse
swaps foreground and background colors.
-Mono runs LyX in black and white mode.
-FastSelection
uses a fast black and white drawing routine for selec-
tions. If you use this, the switches BackgroundColor
and SelectionColor are ignored.
The following options can be used to define the colors to
use for different things:
-MathColor color
-MathFrameColor color
-FootColor color
-LabelColor color
-FillColor color
-NewLineColor color
-OnOffLineColor color
-LatexColor color
-NoteColor color
-LightedColor color
-BackgroundColor color
-SelectionColor color
Furthermore, LyX understands the following generic command
line options from the Forms Library:
-display host:display
specifies the server to connect to.
-bw borderwidth
specifies the border width to use to built-in objects.
-visual visualName
requests a visual by name such as TrueColor etc. By
default the Forms Library always selects the visual
that has the most depth.
-depth depth
requests a specific depth. Try "-depth best" or "-
depth 8" if you get a bad match.
-debug level
generates some info about the state of the XForms.
where level is an integer between 1-5 and controls the
amount of information to output. Depending on the
options used when the Forms Library was built, a level
more than 3 might not be available.
-sync runs the application in synchronous mode with debug
level set to 4.
-private
requests a private colormap for the application.
-shared
requests a shared colormap even if the application
needs more colors than available. For those colors
that can't be allocated in the shared colormap, sub-
stitutions are made so the closest matching color is
used.
-stdcmap
requests a standard colormap.
-name newname
specifies the application name under which resources
are to be obtained, rather than the default executable
file name.
ENVIRONMENT
LYX_DIR_10x
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_10x environment variable
3) Maybe /TOP_SRCDIR/lib
4) /../share//
5) hardcoded lyx_dir (usually /usr/local/share/lyx)
LYX_LOCALEDIR
can be used to tell LyX were to look for the transla-
tions of its GUI strings in other languages.
FILES
~/.lyx/lyxrc Personal configuration file
LIBDIR/lyxrc System wide configuration file
LIBDIR/lyxrc.example System wide configuration file template
LIBDIR/configure 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 is usually
/usr/local/share/lyx.
SEE ALSO
latex(1), xforms(5)
Full documentation in either native LyX or postscript for-
mat.
BUGS
There are probably still some bugs in LyX. Please report
them to lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org with detailed info, includ-
ing which version of LyX you use. Consult the "Known Bugs"
item under the Help menu first if possible.
If you have performance problems, please go through the
lyxrc configuration file. It contains settings that can be
used to improve performance on slow systems.
AUTHOR
Copyright (c) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 by Matthias Ettrich
(ettrich@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de) and the rest of the
LyX Team (See Credits under the Help menu item).