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 format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 2.0.x is
13 able to read old files but will save them in the new format.
15 The format of layout files has changed but, as before, layout2layout.py
16 will convert older versions to the new format automatically.
18 The syntax of the languages file has been changed. If you use a
19 modified languages file, you will need to adapt it to the new syntax.
21 There has been a large change in how Flex insets are named.
22 When exporting back to 1.6.x format user-defined flex insets will not
23 be properly reverted. See RELEASE-NOTES for details.
25 * Upgrading from LyX 1.5.x:
27 The format of preference and session files has changed. LyX 1.6.x is
28 able to read old files but will save them in the new format.
30 The format of layout files has changed but, as before,
31 layout2layout.py will convert older versions to the new format
34 * Upgrading from LyX 1.4.x:
36 The biggest change in 1.5 is the switch to Unicode. Please refer to
37 the section "Document transfer" below for some things you might take
38 into account before upgrading.
40 The format of the preferences file has changed slightly. LyX 1.5.x is
41 able to read old preferences files, but it will save them in the new
42 format, so it is not possible to run LyX 1.4.x and 1.5.x with the same
43 personal configuration directory. If you are upgrading from 1.4.x and
44 do not intend to continue using 1.4.x, you should delete your existing
45 preferences file and allow LyX to create a new one.
47 The list of recently open files is now stored in a different location.
48 It will therefore be reset when upgrading from LyX 1.4.x.
50 The format of the layout files has also changed, but LyX 1.5.x uses a
51 converter layout2layout.py written in python that will convert old layout
52 files on the fly (see below, section "Document transfer").
54 * Upgrading from LyX 1.3.x:
56 The format of the external template file has changed substantially with
57 LyX 1.4.0. Automatic conversion is not available, so you need to convert
58 your external templates manually. The new format of the external template
59 configuration file is described in chapter 6.5 of the Customization Guide.
61 * Upgrading from LyX 1.2.x:
63 Since 1.3.0, you have to do the following changes:
65 One of the perennial bug bears of LyX users in the past has been that
66 they have had to run Edit->Reconfigure when starting their new version
67 of the code for the first time. Strange and wonderful things would
68 often result if they forgot to do this, so LyX 1.3.0 now runs
69 Edit->Reconfigure automatically the first time the program is run.
71 If you have your own layout files, you may need to update them a little:
73 - floats are now defined in the layout file, using the "Float"..."End"
74 construct. In most cases, adding "Input stdfloats.inc" to your layout
77 - counters are also defined in the layout files, using the
78 "Counter"..."End" construct. As for floats, adding "Input
79 stdfloats.inc" is probably a good idea.
81 * Upgrading from LyX 1.1.x:
83 - all layout files should have a "DefaultStyle" entry
85 - the "Latex" font style does not exist anymore. If you really need
86 its functionality, consider using the "PassThru" keyword instead.
88 The new layout format keywords are described in the Customization
91 If you have your own binding files (especially math.bind), you will
94 - math-insert now takes a latex macro name as argument, so that
95 "math-insert sqrt" should now be "\math-insert \sqrt"
97 - math-greek-toggle is now gone, and should be replaced by explicit
100 \bind "M-m g a" "math-insert \alpha"
106 LyX 2.0 uses the Qt 4.x toolkit (see INSTALL file).
108 If you do not have the JPEG library installed, you may need to install it
109 before you can use the graphics capabilities of LyX. If you do not have the
110 ImageMagick command-line tools installed, you will need to modify the default
111 set up of LyX, or install them, in order to get previews of your document's
117 * Compatibility with older documents/layouts
119 LyX 2.0.x uses an external python script, lyx2lyx, to import documents
120 written using previous versions of LyX. All versions of LyX as far back as
123 Of course, this means that you must have python (>= 2.3.4, <3)
124 installed in order to use LyX 2.0.x with your old documents.
126 lyx2lyx also has the framework in place to be able to convert documents to an
127 earlier format (which requires python 2.3.4 at least). However, these
128 converters have only been written for the conversion from 2.0.x to 1.6.x,
129 1.5.x, 1.4.x and 1.3.x, so versions of LyX older than 1.3.0 will NOT be able to
130 read documents saved with LyX 2.0.x. The conversion from 2.0.x to 1.6.x-1.3.x
131 is lossless as long as no new features are used. lyx2lyx tries hard to find
132 something equivalent for new features such as boxes, but this is known to fail
133 sometimes. LyX 1.6.9 contains an updated lyx2lyx that can read documents in
136 Furthermore, LyX uses a converter layout2layout.py, also written in python
137 that will convert old layout files on the fly. You can also call it manually
138 on your layout files if you want to convert them to 2.0.x format permanently.
140 * Formatted references
142 Before version 2.0, LyX used the LaTeX package "prettyref" to produce
143 "formatted references", such as "Section 2.1". This package has several
144 shortcomings when used in a non-English environment, not least of which is
145 that it has no mechanism for internationalization. (See bug #6421 and those
148 As of LyX 2.0, users can choose whether to use prettyref or, alternatively,
149 the "refstyle" package. The current version of refstyle, v0.5, ships with
150 translations for several languages and provides an easy mechanism for users
151 to translate the references it produces into still other languages. It also
152 defines many more commands than prettyref does, including, for example, ones
153 to produce "ranges", such as "Sections 2.1 to 2.3". Some LyX developers are
154 already working with the refstyle maintainer, Danie Els, to make it work more
155 easily with LyX and to extend the translations it provides. (You are invited
156 to contribute translations, too!)
158 Because many LyX users already have customized prettyref for their purposes,
159 LyX 1.6.x files opened in LyX 2.0 will continue to use prettref by default.
160 New LyX 2.0 files will use refstyle by default. Both can of course be changed
161 in Document>Settings. Please be advised, however, that prettyref support is to
162 be considered deprecated: It may well be removed in LyX 2.1, and all users are
163 encouraged to adapt their layout files, etc, to refstyle.
165 Doing so is fairly simple. With prettyref, one has declarations such as:
166 \newrefformat{for}(Formula \ref{#1}}
167 The refstyle equivalent is:
168 \newref{for}{refcmd={Formula \ref{#1}}}
169 The translation is obviously trivial.
171 * Preparing for Unicode:
173 As of version 1.5.0, LyX uses Unicode internally. This is a major change that
174 affects documents and layouts likewise. We have tried to do out best to make the
175 transition as smooth as possible for you. However, there are some caveats:
177 - User layout files must be converted to UTF-8
179 In versions prior to 1.5.0, layout styles were allowed to use non-ASCII names
180 using the local encodings. LyX-1.5 and later assume that all layout files are
181 UTF-8 encoded. This means that non-ASCII style names are still allowed
182 but they must be valid UTF-8 strings. One way of doing the conversion
183 is to use iconv. Using bash, the script below should work:
191 iconv -f latin1 -t utf8 tmp.txt -o "$l"
195 - Inset encodings and Conversion from earlier LyX versions
197 As part of the transition to unicode, lyx2lyx (the scripts used for
198 converting back and forth between different versions of the lyx
199 files) converts old .lyx files, which may use a number of different
200 encodings, to UTF-8. This conversion depends on correctly
201 identifying the language of the text. There were previously some
202 edge-cases (insets embedded in different-language text type
203 scenarios) in which the language was incorrectly identified, which
204 caused some text to appear incorrectly after having upgraded from
205 older versions. This has now been fixed. Unfortunately, however, the
206 fix cannot be applied to files which have already been converted
207 past format 249. So if you have already converted your old files
208 (using a development version or release candidate), this fix won't
209 help, unless you still have the originals lying around (and haven't
210 yet made too many changes to the newer versions ;) ).
212 Generally, it is probably wise to keep a backup of the old version of your
213 files, at least until you are sure that the upgrade went smoothly (which it
216 * Languages/encodings and insets
218 One of the bugs fixed in LyX 1.5.0 is that previously, there were certain
219 specific cases in which the LaTeX generated did not correctly reflect
220 language/encoding transitions in and around insets (footnotes, LyX notes).
221 After much deliberation, it was decided not to change older files such that
222 they will still reflect the old LaTeX output; rather, they will now correctly
223 reflect the situation as it appears in the GUI. This means, however, that if
224 you mangled the text in the GUI in the older versions, in order that it
225 generate the correct LaTeX output, the LaTeX will now generate the mangled
226 text. If this is problematic for you, please get in touch with us on the
227 developers mailing list, we do have some possible solutions for this.
229 The effects of this will be more pronounced for RTL (Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi)
230 users -- though they affect users of other languages as well.
232 * Floatflt in 1.2.x and older
234 If you were previously (in LyX 1.1.x) using the floatflt paragraph
235 option to wrap text around a figure, it was necessary to modify this
236 for LyX 1.2.0 manually, as described in the manuals. The feature has
237 been re-implemented as "Floating figure" inset in 1.3.0. Old files will
238 be converted automatically, but you may want to convert the
239 1.2.x-style ERT constructs with the native solution (see section 3.8
240 of the Extended Features manual).
242 * Babel changes since 1.2.x
244 Since LyX 1.2.0, the babel package is loaded after the user-defined
245 preamble (because some packages really need to be loaded before
246 babel). If you relied, on babel being loaded before your own
247 definitions, you can add an extra "\usepackage{babel}" statement at
248 the beginning of your preamble.
250 http://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/315