1 How do I upgrade my existing LyX system to version 2.1.x?
2 ---------------------------------------------------------
4 * Upgrading from LyX 2.0.x:
6 Python version >=2.4 is now required.
8 Python version >3.0 is still not yet supported.
10 * Upgrading from LyX 1.6.x:
12 The typeset of your documents with non-english language can slightly
13 change in case of math environments and floats. LyX 2.0.x now has its
14 own translation machinery for the strings that are not translated by
17 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 2.0.x is
18 able to read old files but will save them in the new format.
20 The format of layout files has changed but, as before, layout2layout.py
21 will convert older versions to the new format automatically.
23 The syntax of the languages file has been changed. If you use a
24 modified languages file, you will need to adapt it to the new syntax.
26 There has been a large change in how Flex insets are named.
27 When exporting back to 1.6.x format user-defined flex insets will not
28 be properly reverted. See RELEASE-NOTES for details.
30 The UI layout named "classic.ui" and some localized keyboard bindings
31 (sv, pt, fi) are not being shipped anymore.
33 * Upgrading from LyX 1.5.x:
35 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 1.6.x is
36 able to read old files but will save them in the new format.
38 The format of layout files has changed but, as before,
39 layout2layout.py will convert older versions to the new format
42 * Upgrading from LyX 1.4.x:
44 The biggest change in 1.5 is the switch to Unicode. Please refer to
45 the section "Document transfer" below for some things you might take
46 into account before upgrading.
48 The format of the preferences file has changed slightly. LyX 1.5.x is
49 able to read old preferences files, but it will save them in the new
50 format, so it is not possible to run LyX 1.4.x and 1.5.x with the same
51 personal configuration directory. If you are upgrading from 1.4.x and
52 do not intend to continue using 1.4.x, you should delete your existing
53 preferences file and allow LyX to create a new one.
55 The list of recently open files is now stored in a different location.
56 It will therefore be reset when upgrading from LyX 1.4.x.
58 The format of the layout files has also changed, but LyX 1.5.x uses a
59 converter layout2layout.py written in python that will convert old layout
60 files on the fly (see below, section "Document transfer").
62 * Upgrading from LyX 1.3.x:
64 The format of the external template file has changed substantially with
65 LyX 1.4.0. Automatic conversion is not available, so you need to convert
66 your external templates manually. The new format of the external template
67 configuration file is described in chapter 6.5 of the Customization Guide.
69 * Upgrading from LyX 1.2.x:
71 Since 1.3.0, you have to do the following changes:
73 One of the perennial bug bears of LyX users in the past has been that
74 they have had to run Edit->Reconfigure when starting their new version
75 of the code for the first time. Strange and wonderful things would
76 often result if they forgot to do this, so LyX 1.3.0 now runs
77 Edit->Reconfigure automatically the first time the program is run.
79 If you have your own layout files, you may need to update them a little:
81 - floats are now defined in the layout file, using the "Float"..."End"
82 construct. In most cases, adding "Input stdfloats.inc" to your layout
85 - counters are also defined in the layout files, using the
86 "Counter"..."End" construct. As for floats, adding "Input
87 stdfloats.inc" is probably a good idea.
89 * Upgrading from LyX 1.1.x:
91 - all layout files should have a "DefaultStyle" entry
93 - the "Latex" font style does not exist anymore. If you really need
94 its functionality, consider using the "PassThru" keyword instead.
96 The new layout format keywords are described in the Customization
99 If you have your own binding files (especially math.bind), you will
102 - math-insert now takes a latex macro name as argument, so that
103 "math-insert sqrt" should now be "\math-insert \sqrt"
105 - math-greek-toggle is now gone, and should be replaced by explicit
108 \bind "M-m g a" "math-insert \alpha"
114 LyX 2.0 uses the Qt 4.x toolkit (see INSTALL file).
116 If you do not have the JPEG library installed, you may need to install it
117 before you can use the graphics capabilities of LyX. If you do not have the
118 ImageMagick command-line tools installed, you will need to modify the default
119 set up of LyX, or install them, in order to get previews of your document's
125 * Compatibility with older documents/layouts
127 LyX 2.0.x uses an external python script, lyx2lyx, to import documents
128 written using previous versions of LyX. All versions of LyX as far back as
131 Of course, this means that you must have python (>= 2.3.4, <3)
132 installed in order to use LyX 2.0.x with your old documents.
134 lyx2lyx also has the framework in place to be able to convert documents to an
135 earlier format (which requires python 2.3.4 at least). However, these
136 converters have only been written for the conversion from 2.0.x to 1.6.x,
137 1.5.x, 1.4.x and 1.3.x, so versions of LyX older than 1.3.0 will NOT be able to
138 read documents saved with LyX 2.0.x. The conversion from 2.0.x to 1.6.x-1.3.x
139 is lossless as long as no new features are used. lyx2lyx tries hard to find
140 something equivalent for new features such as boxes, but this is known to fail
141 sometimes. LyX 1.6.9 contains an updated lyx2lyx that can read documents in
144 Furthermore, LyX uses a converter layout2layout.py, also written in python
145 that will convert old layout files on the fly. You can also call it manually
146 on your layout files if you want to convert them to 2.0.x format permanently.
148 * Formatted references
150 Before version 2.0, LyX used the LaTeX package "prettyref" to produce
151 "formatted references", such as "Section 2.1". This package has several
152 shortcomings when used in a non-English environment, not least of which is
153 that it has no mechanism for internationalization. (See bug #6421 and those
156 As of LyX 2.0, users can choose whether to use prettyref or, alternatively,
157 the "refstyle" package. The current version of refstyle, v0.5, ships with
158 translations for several languages and provides an easy mechanism for users
159 to translate the references it produces into still other languages. It also
160 defines many more commands than prettyref does, including, for example, ones
161 to produce "ranges", such as "Sections 2.1 to 2.3". Some LyX developers are
162 already working with the refstyle maintainer, Danie Els, to make it work more
163 easily with LyX and to extend the translations it provides. (You are invited
164 to contribute translations, too!)
166 Because many LyX users already have customized prettyref for their purposes,
167 LyX 1.6.x files opened in LyX 2.0 will continue to use prettref by default.
168 New LyX 2.0 files will use refstyle by default. Both can of course be changed
169 in Document>Settings. Please be advised, however, that prettyref support is to
170 be considered deprecated: It may well be removed in LyX 2.1, and all users are
171 encouraged to adapt their layout files, etc, to refstyle.
173 Doing so is fairly simple. With prettyref, one has declarations such as:
174 \newrefformat{for}(Formula \ref{#1}}
175 The refstyle equivalent is:
176 \newref{for}{refcmd={Formula \ref{#1}}}
177 The translation is obviously trivial.
179 * Preparing for Unicode:
181 As of version 1.5.0, LyX uses Unicode internally. This is a major change that
182 affects documents and layouts likewise. We have tried to do out best to make the
183 transition as smooth as possible for you. However, there are some caveats:
185 - User layout files must be converted to UTF-8
187 In versions prior to 1.5.0, layout styles were allowed to use non-ASCII names
188 using the local encodings. LyX-1.5 and later assume that all layout files are
189 UTF-8 encoded. This means that non-ASCII style names are still allowed
190 but they must be valid UTF-8 strings. One way of doing the conversion
191 is to use iconv. Using bash, the script below should work:
199 iconv -f latin1 -t utf8 tmp.txt -o "$l"
203 - Inset encodings and Conversion from earlier LyX versions
205 As part of the transition to unicode, lyx2lyx (the scripts used for
206 converting back and forth between different versions of the lyx
207 files) converts old .lyx files, which may use a number of different
208 encodings, to UTF-8. This conversion depends on correctly
209 identifying the language of the text. There were previously some
210 edge-cases (insets embedded in different-language text type
211 scenarios) in which the language was incorrectly identified, which
212 caused some text to appear incorrectly after having upgraded from
213 older versions. This has now been fixed. Unfortunately, however, the
214 fix cannot be applied to files which have already been converted
215 past format 249. So if you have already converted your old files
216 (using a development version or release candidate), this fix won't
217 help, unless you still have the originals lying around (and haven't
218 yet made too many changes to the newer versions ;) ).
220 Generally, it is probably wise to keep a backup of the old version of your
221 files, at least until you are sure that the upgrade went smoothly (which it
224 * Languages/encodings and insets
226 One of the bugs fixed in LyX 1.5.0 is that previously, there were certain
227 specific cases in which the LaTeX generated did not correctly reflect
228 language/encoding transitions in and around insets (footnotes, LyX notes).
229 After much deliberation, it was decided not to change older files such that
230 they will still reflect the old LaTeX output; rather, they will now correctly
231 reflect the situation as it appears in the GUI. This means, however, that if
232 you mangled the text in the GUI in the older versions, in order that it
233 generate the correct LaTeX output, the LaTeX will now generate the mangled
234 text. If this is problematic for you, please get in touch with us on the
235 developers mailing list, we do have some possible solutions for this.
237 The effects of this will be more pronounced for RTL (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi)
238 users -- though they affect users of other languages as well.
240 * Floatflt in 1.2.x and older
242 If you were previously (in LyX 1.1.x) using the floatflt paragraph
243 option to wrap text around a figure, it was necessary to modify this
244 for LyX 1.2.0 manually, as described in the manuals. The feature has
245 been re-implemented as "Floating figure" inset in 1.3.0. Old files will
246 be converted automatically, but you may want to convert the
247 1.2.x-style ERT constructs with the native solution (see section 3.8
248 of the Extended Features manual).
250 * Babel changes since 1.2.x
252 Since LyX 1.2.0, the babel package is loaded after the user-defined
253 preamble (because some packages really need to be loaded before
254 babel). If you relied, on babel being loaded before your own
255 definitions, you can add an extra "\usepackage{babel}" statement at
256 the beginning of your preamble.
258 http://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/315