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Re: [seul-edu] Linux DTP
Title: Re: [seul-edu] Linux DTP
Dave,
I have twiddled with Lyx and Klyx (the KDE version). It is the graphical front end of Latex, which is in turn a set of more user-friendly instructions on top of Tex. My ignorant way of thinking of it is that Tex/Latex is a set of tags kinda like html. Using Lyx to generate Latex is like using a simple web design program to generate html. The other comparison is that it is like using MS Word if you could only change formatting by using styles--no changing fonts, etc individually. This makes for good habits, but the kids probably wouldn't like the restriction.
It would not easily do what you need, because you don't really drag and drop things around, you have to define them more in terms of the structure of the document. If you made yourself an expert on Latex and had kids who, for some reason, really bought into the idea of using Lyx, you could probably do some really interesting things with it, but it would be a major undertaking.
One great advantage of Lyx is that it could be used to get around the tendency of kids to use wacked out fonts and formatting. On assignments where you wanted things to look uniform, Lyx would be perfect. It would also be perfect for kids doing serious research papers, with a little tweaking.
--Tom
on 11/16/00 8:32 PM, Dave Prentice at dprentice@uno.edu wrote:
I don't know anything about LyX. Does it run in a GUI? I don't want the students to have to learn code, just be able to place and move objects as in most DTP programs.
Dave Prentice
prentice@instruction.com
-----Original Message-----
From: jeff williams <cfiaime@nconnect.net>
To: seul-edu@seul.org <seul-edu@seul.org>
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2000 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Linux DTP
On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, you wrote:
> > I have no idea how I'm supposed to teach a DTP class without DTP
> > software. I checked out the www.chilliware.net <http://www.chilliware.net> site Doug posted a few
> > weeks ago, but their DTP product will not be shipped until January.
> > I'm trying to get a demo.
> You might check out KWrite. It still has problems but they might not
> problems for you. Anyhow, it is free.
> It works like a DTP rather than a WP so the work is most promising.
What about LyX? Being based as it is on TeX it may do what you want. It also
is open source, so the principal should have no problem funding the effort.