LYX(1)

📦
version 2.5.3 · 11 versions
, in opensuse-leap 16.0

🌸 LYX(1) — the LyX manual page, but make it make sense 🌸

ok so bestie, this is the page for LyX from the LyX 2.5 era, and it goes by LYX(1) in man-page land. Sit down, grab a boba, we're getting into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

LyX — a whole Document Processor, no cap.

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

lyx [ command-line switches ] [ name[.lyx] ... ]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so first things first: LyX is too complex to be described completely in the "man" page format, periodt. If your system is properly configured, you can get the full documentation inside LyX, under the Help menu. iykyk.

LyX is a document preparation system. It literally excels at letting you create complex technical and scientific articles — with mathematics, cross-references, bibliographies, indices, etc. It's very good at documents of any length where 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's used for, bestie: 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. main character energy across every genre honestly 👑

Currently, LyX uses the Qt library as a toolkit. LyX should run everywhere this library runs — that's on all major Unix platforms as well as Windows and macOS (which actually is a unix platform, we don't make the rules 🫶).

✨ OPTIONS ✨

LyX supports the following command-line switches. buckle up 💀

  • -help — summarizes LyX usage. the lil "what do i even do here" button.
  • -version — gives you version info on the build of LyX.
  • -sysdir directory — sets the system directory. Normally not needed — like, fr fr, you probably don't need it.
  • -userdir directory — sets the user directory. Needed if you want to use LyX with different lyxrc settings.
  • -geometry WxH+X+Y — set the 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. peek behind the curtain moment ✨
  • -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 — don't reorder them and then come crying to me 😭
  • -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). yes it brings its friends 🎀
  • -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 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. And here's the lil gotcha 👀: 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" — the 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. independent queen behavior 💅
  • -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. the "tell me everything" flag 🗣️
  • -batch — causes LyX to run the given commands without opening a GUI window. So, 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). headless and thriving 🧚

🌈 QT OPTIONS 🌈

LyX is a Qt-based application, and thus recognizes common options implemented by Qt itself — notably -platform, -style, -geometry, -session, -display, etc. Please consult the Qt documentation for further details, e.g.:

https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qapplication.html#QApplication
https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qguiapplication.html#supported-command-line-
options

🍓 ENVIRONMENT 🍓

  • LYX_DIR_25x — 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_25x 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_25x — 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_25x 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. multilingual icon 🌍
  • 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 the same meaning as for the -f switch.

🎀 FILES 🎀

LIBDIR is the system defaults directory. At build time this was /usr/share/lyx/. Most settings can be modified by the user by following the structure from system defaults in: ~/.lyx/

Most important files/directories:

~/.lyx/preferences      Personal configuration file
~/.lyx/lyxrc.defaults   Personal autodetected configuration file
~/.lyx/*.dict           User-saved words from continuous spell-check
~/.lyx/session          Automatically generated session settings
~/.lyx/cache/           Document images converted for preview in editing window
LIBDIR/bind/        Keybindings
LIBDIR/citeengines/ Definitions for various citation tools
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/lyx2lyx/     Scripts for converting between major versions of .lyx files
LIBDIR/scripts/     Conversion scripts used in background
LIBDIR/templates/   Templates for documents
LIBDIR/ui/          Menus, context menus
LIBDIR/xtemplates/  Templates for conversion from external tools
LIBDIR/configure.py   Updates LyX if systen configuration has changed
LIBDIR/autocorrect    Database for autocorrection substitutions
LIBDIR/languages      Supported languages and associated definitions
LIBDIR/latexfonts     Internally supported fonts for typesetting
LIBDIR/layouttranslations Translations missing in LaTeX for typesetting
LIBDIR/symbols        Symbols supported by mathed, xHTML/DocBook
LIBDIR/unicodesymbols Unicode -> LaTeX commands database
LIBDIR/RELEASE-NOTES  Important changes for major LyX release

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

tex2lyx(1), latex(1).

Full documentation is in the LyX manuals, in either native LyX format or exported to PDF. Some versions can also be directly downloaded from https://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/Manuals. go read, it's giving ✨educated✨

💀 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! (please, we're begging 🙏)

LaTeX import is still not perfect and may produce buggy *.lyx files. Consult the tex2lyx documentation. ngl it's doing its best 😭

👑 AUTHORS 👑

LyX is Copyright (C) 1995 by Matthias Ettrich, 1995-2025 LyX Team

and that's the whole page bestie 🫶 this was Version 2.5, dated 2026-09-07, filed under LYX(1) — slay, go make a dissertation 💖✨

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