LyX ⇒ Copied Text from different Sources

[judgedredd]

Hi,

Complete newbie to Lyx/LaTeX but am in great need of a damn good program for creating legal and reference documents.

The problem: A program is required that allows my friend and me (I talk my friend through formatting and other problems - especially when a program does not do what it is meant to do - and am a tech consultant to him as he is a beginner/intermediate level on a computer) to create legal documents that comprise typing and also copying and pasting short sentences and minimal text from PDF files or HTML files (he has the Arkansas Supreme Court database in PDF format and the US Supreme Court database in HTML format). This copying and pasting is to do with finding case citations and case captions and highlighting the relevant text and copying it over into the legal document that is being created. Having used Open Office and then WordPerfect X6 these programs really suck in what they do to text that is copied from the PDF and HTML source files.

With OpenOffice when the text is copied over it formats it in a different font and type other than the default font and type in the document. It also adds formatting and line spacing that is really hard to get rid of or correct so one ends up having to spend twice the amount of time reformatting the copied text.

WordPerfect is no better and a problem has cropped up where my friends WP installation jumps to 24 point size line spacing at random times. He then has to go to 'Format'>'Paragraph'>'Format' and set the line spacing to '1 Line'. At some point it jumps back to 24 pt line spacing. It drives him (and me) nuts. This is just one of many problems with WP.

What he and me want is a program where he can just copy and paste and type text and not have to be concerned about formatting every bloody time he does the copying and pasting. He is putting together quite a large document and the amount of time saved would be enormous, as even shaving off ten seconds every time he copies and pastes would save hours with the amount of work he is doing.

Question: Is LyX the way to go? (Yes, we will have to learn it as we go - actually I will and then guide him over the phone.) I have briefly looked at the features of LyX and it does seem to have what we are looking for. I just need some confirmation from someone that is knowledgeable with this program. The output would preferably be .rtf, .doc or .wpd format (in that order) so that it can be printed out and read quickly, added to over time and that can also be shared (if needed) by others to read/edit (who do not have LyX). PDF may be a final product although it makes me a bit uncomfortable to use this format as a finished file format (not editable).

Any and all help would be very much appreciated.

[Hans Nieuwenhuis]

I don't know how OpenOffice and WP exactly work, but in some text editors (like MS Word), you have normally an option 'paste special...' if you want to copy text to a document.

One of the ways you can than paste text is for example 'unformatted Unicode'. That option should just copy the text as plain Unicode text, without any formatting from the text in the 'original' document.

If OpenOffice and/or WP support such a function, than you wouldn't have to switch to LaTeX.

But I would make the switch to LaTeX anyway

NB: most PDF readers also have an option to add comments to a PDF document. So in this way you can make a PDF document from a LaTeX source file, send it to other people and let those other people add their comments.

[scottkosty]

In LyX, use "ctrl + shift + v" to paste plain text (unformatted). This is found in the Edit > Paste special menu, as Hans suggested.

[judgedredd]

Thank you both very much for the quick, informative, and polite, replies.