I cannot convey how awesome this is. I don't have the time to learn TeX, but this has given me all the benefits. I am very proficient with Word, but this is a completely different way to approach word processing / text layout, and much better if you ask me. The learning curve is a touch steep if you are not prepared to read the manuals, but I have become completely comfortable in a matter of days without once checking a manual. I use this with Bibdesk and Preview and am amazed at how organised you academic life can be.

I'm just getting up to speed with LyX after turning up my nose at it a few times over a few years. This time, I am mightily impressed. This is hands down the easiest way to make structured documents and have them typset with the uber-capable LaTeX system. You don't have to learn to code LaTeX but if you know it already, you can always embed it to your heart's content. The first thing you have to get use to is, this isn't Microsoft Word. And that's a good thing. The ability to completely change the look of your document with a couple of mouse clicks is amazing. This is useful for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is submitting work to different places which require different layouts. The developers have worked hard to make this non-Linyxy, porting it to the Qt framework to give it a fairly Mac-like appearance. (I'm a stickler for Mac-like behavior, and the Qt framework has some annoying behaviors but it's a huge, huge improvement over the X system.) The on-screen appearance is surprisingly WYSIWYG, which is helpful in long writing sessions. But, as the developers like to say, this is What You Get Is What You Mean, or something like that. The payoff comes when you hit Command-R and in a few seconds your default PDF viewer opens with a beautifully-rendered professional-looking page. You can't imagine how much better a true typeset page looks when compared to the usual output from a word processor. And to see it set in the format of your favorite journal is pretty cool. Yes, there is a learning curve, but so is there a learning curve with any program that does non-trivial word processing. The documentation for LyX is unusually good (for an open source project), and the developers are quite responsive.

This cool OpenSource Software deserves 5 Stars!

In many ways better than LyX 1.3x; however, mine crashes every time I quit. This is not really bad, but it's not good either. However, I suggest that everyone who uses LateX or avoids using LaTeX give this a try. I have completely converted from LaTeX to LyX

Thanks to the Mac developers of this - if it weren't for their hard and excellent work, I'd still be using LyX in X11. Thank goodness!