LibreOffice to LyX

[Virgil Arrington]

On 10/5/2021 2:45 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:
> Virgil,
>
> I have shortened and reformatted slightly for ease of reference.
>
> Actually constant misunderimprovements are one of the mistakes one
> often makes in presentations.
>
I suspect you're right, but I just can't leave things alone. I also 
think there's some virtue in variety. In fact, one of the things I like 
about LyX is that I can change the total look and feel of a presentation 
by simply changing a theme name. That is sooooo much quicker than giving 
an LO Impress presentation a makeover.

> The query
>
> https://www.google.com/search?q=lyx+text+color
>
> returns 1260000 results, the very FIRST of which
>
> https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/33225/color-text-in-lyx
>
> explains this quite nicely.

> As xcolor is loaded by LyX I just add something like
>
>     \definecolor{MyBlue}{HTML}{000040}
>     \definecolor{Firebrick4}{HTML}{8b1a1a}
>
> to my preamble
>
> [...]
>
Here, I think you're actually supporting my point in several respects. 
While I didn't find your specific StackExchange thread, what I did find 
said the same things. It first said to add \usepackage{xcolor} to the 
preamble, which I did, adding the [dvipsnames] option, which produced 
the error message I reported earlier. Even setting this aside, adding 
your color redefinitions to the preamble is only helpful if you know 
what the color codes "000040" and "8b1a1a" actually mean. LibreOffice's 
method of pointing to a color in a palette on the toolbar is certainly 
easier and quicker than making all these preamble modifications.

That said, I will concede that once these preamble changes are made in 
LyX, you're good to go on any future documents.

>
> It seems you have an aversion towards RTFM :-)-O, even though one only
> needs to do this once. 

If you mean "Read the F* Manual," I have no such aversion. In fact, I 
enjoy printing out and reading online software documentation. But, you 
have to admit, LaTeX manuals are massive. The xcolor manual is some 115 
pages long. My favorite LaTeX package, Microtype, comes with a ~250 page 
manual. Even the LyX manuals included in its Help are voluminous. There 
are simply not enough hours in the day to read all there is on 
LyX/LaTeX. This is why I typically do an online search; that way I can 
hone in the issue I need resolved.

But, this only highlights my frustration. Part of me says I shouldn't 
*have* to do online searches to accomplish what LibreOffice lets me do 
with a few points and clicks. Thirty years ago, in the days of MS-DOS, I 
had an IT manager tell me that his test for quality software was that 
good software didn't need a manual. I'm not sure I agree with him, but I 
will repeat that, with LibreOffice, I can usually solve all quandaries 
within the program itself without needing to search for answers on the 
web. In fact, I can't remember the last time I needed to do any kind of 
search to solve a problem with LibreOffice. With LyX/LaTeX, it's common 
practice.


>
> And, in case someone is interested I attach the template I use if I have
> to write something for our weekly Continuing Professional Development/
> Continuing Medical Education sessions.
>
Your template is both beautiful and an example of what one can do with a 
LaTeX education. I'm impressed. But, I was curious when you said you use 
a modified Metropolis theme. I've never seen Metropolis in any list of 
Beamer themes (see, e.g., Beamer Themes - Full List - LaTeX Beamer 
(latex-beamer.com) <https://latex-beamer.com/tutorials/beamer-themes/>. 
What is interesting is that Metropolis *is* included in LibreOffice 
Impress templates, although it looks quite different from your LyX 
presentation.

Just for fun, I wanted to see how much work it would be to add a slanted 
date background to a LibreOffice Impress slide presentation. I have 
never added such a background to a slide presentation before, so I was 
working cold. Without doing any research, I simply added a textbox, 
inserted my text, resized it, colored it gray, and then grabbed the 
textbox corners and turned to box to my liking. It then magically fell 
into the background of my main textbox containing my slide's content. 
The whole process took minutes and was very intuitive. Admittedly, I 
don't know if I did it the "right" way as LibreOffice usually has two to 
three gazillion ways of doing things (one drawback to my thinking), but 
my method worked and I got the job accomplished very quickly. My 
resulting slide presentation is attached as a pdf. This is what my 
slides generally look like for the Sunday school class I teach.

Thank you for sharing your template. It has a wealth of information in 
it and could save a user a ton of research time in learning how to do 
what you already know.

You have inspired me to play more with Beamer. I'm impressed with what 
you have accomplished.

Virgil

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