1 How do I upgrade my existing LyX system to version 2.3.x?
2 ---------------------------------------------------------
4 * Upgrading from LyX 2.2.x:
6 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 2.3.x is able to
7 read old files but will save them in the new format.
9 The format of layout files has changed but, as before, layout2layout.py will
10 convert older versions to the new format automatically.
12 The external_templates file has been split into one file per template,
13 which are now located in lib/xtemplates/*.xtemplate. This makes it easier
14 to add new templates or modify existing ones. If you have modified
15 the external_templates file, you will have to move the modifications to
16 the respective *.xtemplate file manually.
18 If using TeX fonts and en- and em-dashes are output as font ligatures,
19 when exporting documents containing en- and em-dashes to the format of
20 LyX 2.0 or earlier, the following line has to be manually added to the
21 unicodesymbols file of that LyX version:<br>
22 0x200b "\\hspace{0pt}" "" "" "" "" # ZERO WIDTH SPACE<br>
23 This avoids "uncodable character" issues if the document is actually
24 loaded by that LyX version. LyX 2.1 and later versions already have the
25 necessary definition in their unicodesymbols file.
27 If trying to compile documents using R scripts and sweave/knitr, LyX
28 2.3.x would not allow for re-running the R scripts, unless the user:
29 1) explicitly disables the "Forbid use of needauth converters"
30 option in the LyX preferences;
31 2) provides explicit consent to the use of the converter on the first
32 compilation of the R-enhanced document.
34 * Upgrading from LyX 2.1.x:
36 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 2.2.x is able to
37 read old files but will save them in the new format.
39 The format of layout files has changed but, as before, layout2layout.py will
40 convert older versions to the new format automatically.
42 The prefix for subsections in labels and references has been changed from
43 "sub:" to "subsec:" in order to avoid a clash with subfloats (conflicting
44 \subref command, see bug #7550). Files are automatically converted to the new
45 scheme. Please assure that you adapt external refstyle or prettyref definitions
46 and your own layout files.
48 BibTeX errors are now processed and cause LyX to show the errors dialog.
49 Before, these errors were ignored, which means that it may happen that
50 documents that compiled without error with a previous version now
51 compile with error. However, because now in 2.2.x users can click on
52 the "Show Output Anyway" button, the document can still be viewed.
54 Missing characters in the output are now reported as errors. This leads
55 to error reports for documents that compiled without error before.
56 However, the error was always present but went undetected!
58 Documents using Times fonts and containing Greek characters may now fail
59 to compile under pdflatex for users of MikTeX due to an automatically
60 half-installed "grtimes" package. A workaround in LyX was removed as it
61 stands in the way of alternative approaches (see bug #6469).
63 With LuaTeX, LyX now uses polyglossia instead of babel if the language
64 package option "Automatic" is selected. In order to use babel, select
65 "Always babel" instead. This may be needed if a document uses code that
68 * Upgrading from LyX 2.0.x:
70 Python version >=2.4 is now required.
72 Python version >3.0 is still not yet supported.
74 * Upgrading from LyX 1.6.x:
76 The typeset of your documents with non-english language can slightly
77 change in case of math environments and floats. LyX 2.0.x now has its
78 own translation machinery for the strings that are not translated by
81 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 2.0.x is
82 able to read old files but will save them in the new format.
84 The format of layout files has changed but, as before, layout2layout.py
85 will convert older versions to the new format automatically.
87 The syntax of the languages file has been changed. If you use a
88 modified languages file, you will need to adapt it to the new syntax.
90 There has been a large change in how Flex insets are named.
91 When exporting back to 1.6.x format user-defined flex insets will not
92 be properly reverted. See RELEASE-NOTES for details.
94 The UI layout named "classic.ui" and some localized keyboard bindings
95 (sv, pt, fi) are not being shipped anymore.
97 * Upgrading from LyX 1.5.x:
99 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 1.6.x is
100 able to read old files but will save them in the new format.
102 The format of layout files has changed but, as before,
103 layout2layout.py will convert older versions to the new format
106 * Upgrading from LyX 1.4.x:
108 The biggest change in 1.5 is the switch to Unicode. Please refer to
109 the section "Document transfer" below for some things you might take
110 into account before upgrading.
112 The format of the preferences file has changed slightly. LyX 1.5.x is
113 able to read old preferences files, but it will save them in the new
114 format, so it is not possible to run LyX 1.4.x and 1.5.x with the same
115 personal configuration directory. If you are upgrading from 1.4.x and
116 do not intend to continue using 1.4.x, you should delete your existing
117 preferences file and allow LyX to create a new one.
119 The list of recently open files is now stored in a different location.
120 It will therefore be reset when upgrading from LyX 1.4.x.
122 The format of the layout files has also changed, but LyX 1.5.x uses a
123 converter layout2layout.py written in python that will convert old layout
124 files on the fly (see below, section "Document transfer").
126 * Upgrading from LyX 1.3.x:
128 The format of the external template file has changed substantially with
129 LyX 1.4.0. Automatic conversion is not available, so you need to convert
130 your external templates manually. The new format of the external template
131 configuration file is described in chapter 6.5 of the Customization Guide.
133 * Upgrading from LyX 1.2.x:
135 Since 1.3.0, you have to do the following changes:
137 One of the perennial bug bears of LyX users in the past has been that
138 they have had to run Edit->Reconfigure when starting their new version
139 of the code for the first time. Strange and wonderful things would
140 often result if they forgot to do this, so LyX 1.3.0 now runs
141 Edit->Reconfigure automatically the first time the program is run.
143 If you have your own layout files, you may need to update them a little:
145 - floats are now defined in the layout file, using the "Float"..."End"
146 construct. In most cases, adding "Input stdfloats.inc" to your layout
149 - counters are also defined in the layout files, using the
150 "Counter"..."End" construct. As for floats, adding "Input
151 stdfloats.inc" is probably a good idea.
153 * Upgrading from LyX 1.1.x:
155 - all layout files should have a "DefaultStyle" entry
157 - the "Latex" font style does not exist anymore. If you really need
158 its functionality, consider using the "PassThru" keyword instead.
160 The new layout format keywords are described in the Customization
163 If you have your own binding files (especially math.bind), you will
166 - math-insert now takes a latex macro name as argument, so that
167 "math-insert sqrt" should now be "\math-insert \sqrt"
169 - math-greek-toggle is now gone, and should be replaced by explicit
172 \bind "M-m g a" "math-insert \alpha"
178 LyX 2.0 uses the Qt 4.x toolkit (see INSTALL file).
180 If you do not have the JPEG library installed, you may need to install it
181 before you can use the graphics capabilities of LyX. If you do not have the
182 ImageMagick command-line tools installed, you will need to modify the default
183 set up of LyX, or install them, in order to get previews of your document's
189 * Compatibility with older documents/layouts
191 LyX 2.0.x uses an external python script, lyx2lyx, to import documents
192 written using previous versions of LyX. All versions of LyX as far back as
195 Of course, this means that you must have python (>= 2.3.4, <3)
196 installed in order to use LyX 2.0.x with your old documents.
198 lyx2lyx also has the framework in place to be able to convert documents to an
199 earlier format (which requires python 2.3.4 at least). However, these
200 converters have only been written for the conversion from 2.0.x to 1.6.x,
201 1.5.x, 1.4.x and 1.3.x, so versions of LyX older than 1.3.0 will NOT be able to
202 read documents saved with LyX 2.0.x. The conversion from 2.0.x to 1.6.x-1.3.x
203 is lossless as long as no new features are used. lyx2lyx tries hard to find
204 something equivalent for new features such as boxes, but this is known to fail
205 sometimes. LyX 1.6.9 contains an updated lyx2lyx that can read documents in
208 Furthermore, LyX uses a converter layout2layout.py, also written in python
209 that will convert old layout files on the fly. You can also call it manually
210 on your layout files if you want to convert them to 2.0.x format permanently.
212 * Formatted references
214 Before version 2.0, LyX used the LaTeX package "prettyref" to produce
215 "formatted references", such as "Section 2.1". This package has several
216 shortcomings when used in a non-English environment, not least of which is
217 that it has no mechanism for internationalization. (See bug #6421 and those
220 As of LyX 2.0, users can choose whether to use prettyref or, alternatively,
221 the "refstyle" package. The current version of refstyle, v0.5, ships with
222 translations for several languages and provides an easy mechanism for users
223 to translate the references it produces into still other languages. It also
224 defines many more commands than prettyref does, including, for example, ones
225 to produce "ranges", such as "Sections 2.1 to 2.3". Some LyX developers are
226 already working with the refstyle maintainer, Danie Els, to make it work more
227 easily with LyX and to extend the translations it provides. (You are invited
228 to contribute translations, too!)
230 Because many LyX users already have customized prettyref for their purposes,
231 LyX 1.6.x files opened in LyX 2.0 will continue to use prettref by default.
232 New LyX 2.0 files will use refstyle by default. Both can of course be changed
233 in Document>Settings. Please be advised, however, that prettyref support is to
234 be considered deprecated: It may well be removed in LyX 2.1, and all users are
235 encouraged to adapt their layout files, etc, to refstyle.
237 Doing so is fairly simple. With prettyref, one has declarations such as:
238 \newrefformat{for}(Formula \ref{#1}}
239 The refstyle equivalent is:
240 \newref{for}{refcmd={Formula \ref{#1}}}
241 The translation is obviously trivial.
243 * Preparing for Unicode:
245 As of version 1.5.0, LyX uses Unicode internally. This is a major change that
246 affects documents and layouts likewise. We have tried to do out best to make the
247 transition as smooth as possible for you. However, there are some caveats:
249 - User layout files must be converted to UTF-8
251 In versions prior to 1.5.0, layout styles were allowed to use non-ASCII names
252 using the local encodings. LyX-1.5 and later assume that all layout files are
253 UTF-8 encoded. This means that non-ASCII style names are still allowed
254 but they must be valid UTF-8 strings. One way of doing the conversion
255 is to use iconv. Using bash, the script below should work:
263 iconv -f latin1 -t utf8 tmp.txt -o "$l"
267 - Inset encodings and Conversion from earlier LyX versions
269 As part of the transition to unicode, lyx2lyx (the scripts used for
270 converting back and forth between different versions of the lyx
271 files) converts old .lyx files, which may use a number of different
272 encodings, to UTF-8. This conversion depends on correctly
273 identifying the language of the text. There were previously some
274 edge-cases (insets embedded in different-language text type
275 scenarios) in which the language was incorrectly identified, which
276 caused some text to appear incorrectly after having upgraded from
277 older versions. This has now been fixed. Unfortunately, however, the
278 fix cannot be applied to files which have already been converted
279 past format 249. So if you have already converted your old files
280 (using a development version or release candidate), this fix won't
281 help, unless you still have the originals lying around (and haven't
282 yet made too many changes to the newer versions ;) ).
284 Generally, it is probably wise to keep a backup of the old version of your
285 files, at least until you are sure that the upgrade went smoothly (which it
288 * Languages/encodings and insets
290 One of the bugs fixed in LyX 1.5.0 is that previously, there were certain
291 specific cases in which the LaTeX generated did not correctly reflect
292 language/encoding transitions in and around insets (footnotes, LyX notes).
293 After much deliberation, it was decided not to change older files such that
294 they will still reflect the old LaTeX output; rather, they will now correctly
295 reflect the situation as it appears in the GUI. This means, however, that if
296 you mangled the text in the GUI in the older versions, in order that it
297 generate the correct LaTeX output, the LaTeX will now generate the mangled
298 text. If this is problematic for you, please get in touch with us on the
299 developers mailing list, we do have some possible solutions for this.
301 The effects of this will be more pronounced for RTL (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi)
302 users -- though they affect users of other languages as well.
304 * Floatflt in 1.2.x and older
306 If you were previously (in LyX 1.1.x) using the floatflt paragraph
307 option to wrap text around a figure, it was necessary to modify this
308 for LyX 1.2.0 manually, as described in the manuals. The feature has
309 been re-implemented as "Floating figure" inset in 1.3.0. Old files will
310 be converted automatically, but you may want to convert the
311 1.2.x-style ERT constructs with the native solution (see section 3.8
312 of the Extended Features manual).
314 * Babel changes since 1.2.x
316 Since LyX 1.2.0, the babel package is loaded after the user-defined
317 preamble (because some packages really need to be loaded before
318 babel). If you relied, on babel being loaded before your own
319 definitions, you can add an extra "\usepackage{babel}" statement at
320 the beginning of your preamble.
322 http://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/315