LyX wiki | LyX / ManPage

<< | Page list | >>

The man page for LyX

On *nix systems you can often write

man lyx

in order to obtain a manual page for LyX. Below is the result of doing this for LyX 2.3.6

LYX(1) LyX 2.3.6 LYX(1)

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, disserta-
tions 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, luatex, xetex, xhtml, text, lyx, ps, pdf,
...). Note that the order of -e and -x switches matters.

-E [--export-to] fmt filename
where fmt is the export format of choice (see --export), and filename is the destination filename. Note
that any additional external file needed by filename (such as image files) will be exported as well to
the folder containing filename (preserving the relative path embedded within the original LyX document,
if any).

-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.

--ignore-error-message which
allows you to ignore specific LaTeX error messages. Do not use for final documents! Currently supported
values: "missing_glyphs" Fontspec "missing glyphs" error.

-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.

-v [--verbose]
print on terminal all spawned external commands.

-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_23x
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_23x 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_23x
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_23x 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 be-
havior 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.