LyX

With LyX available I don't know why anyone would want to use any LaTeX coding app.

The version 2.1.4 was released on 30.7.2015

I wrote my entire PhD thesis with this wonderful software and Jabref years ago. The tracking function is good enough for collaboration between my advisor and me. Good job!

This is a very nice document preparation tool. My main usage case was to typeset notes with lots of math and also prototype journal articles. The disadvantages is that not everyone uses it so if you collaborate with anyone who doesn't use it (usually your boss) you have to switch to latex and also sometimes in order to publish you need to make micro-adjustments, which are usually one command in latex but require a lot of drilling in lyx. But this is understandable as there can be no perfect GUI. For the mac there is also the problem is that it is not retina ready and this does not seem to be a priority for the developers (also understandable since it requires an update of the toolkit and all the bindings and probably that is too complicated). It is still perfectly usable of course, but add this all up and a modern latex editor with live preview seems to be more practical these days. And I say this after using lyx for 10 years. I still recommend it as an educational tool for latex or for the people who are not very demanding with their documents (i.e. they don't need to publish). For whoever wants to use latex for publishing (or for collaboration), there is no way to escape learning it in the end and using lyx will simply delay the inevitable.

The best. 'Nuf said

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 love lyx. Latex made simple.

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!