LyX dispaying incorrect characters in Math Mode - Linux Mint

Jimmy · Post by **Jimmy** » Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:15 pm

Hi everyone,

I actually asked this question originally on the LaTeX stack exchange and it was suggested I ask here instead. Basically I installed Linux Mint 19.1 a few days ago. Before that I was a Windows user. I installed Texlive-full from the ubuntu repository and then LyX. The problem is that LyX displays the incorrect characters in math mode. For example instead of the greek alphabet when I type "\alpha" or "\beta" it prints bold font English letters "a" and "b". Instead of a minus sign it displays "lyxminus". Some characters are still correct such as epsilon but the majority are wrong. the output PDF is correct. I have tried reinstalling both LyX and TexLive. I think it may be the fonts on Mint itself. I tried to update Mint but that made no difference. If anyone has solved this in the past this or knows how to fix it I will appreciate the help.

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Post by **Stefan Kottwitz** » Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:30 pm

Hi Jimmy,

welcome to the forum!

Is it a LyX displaying issue, or is the PDF output wrong too?

Can you please post a sample .lyx file, the pdfLaTeX export file (for us LaTeX users without LyX to check the same), and the .log file? The Attachments link is below the text edit field, when writing a post.

Stefan

Jimmy · Post by **Jimmy** » Thu Apr 04, 2019 5:55 pm

Hi Stefan,

Thanks for the response. It's only in LyX, the output file is fine.

Jimmy

Post by **Stefan Kottwitz** » Thu Apr 04, 2019 7:21 pm

Did you install LyX from a (Ubuntu?) repository or from http://www.lyx.org? Perhaps check the download page for a Debian package that can be installed. (such as by dpkg -i lyx.deb)

It seems to be a LyX issue since it's find in the pdfLaTeX output, or a Mint font rendering issue. If there's a newer version of LyX than you installed, I would give the newer one a try.

Stefan

Jimmy · Post by **Jimmy** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:30 pm

Thanks for your help!

The problem now seems to be fixed. I removed LyX from the system entirely and used synaptic package manager to install LyX rather than apt (command line tool). This may have installed a more recent version, as it is the most up to date release available according to https://repology.org/project/lyx/version which is the full list of LyX versions for Linux.

Hayk Asatryan · Post by **Hayk Asatryan** » Mon Mar 02, 2020 4:41 pm

The trick that solved this problem for me was the installation of

"fonts-lyx" (version: 2.2.4-0ubuntu0.18.04.1)

using Synaptic Package Manager. Earlier I removed LyX using

sudo apt-get remove lyx (remove your repository version)
sudo apt-get autoremove (remove repository dependencies)

as instructed on the LyX official page. Then I tried the fresh installation first using the method suggested by the LyX official page:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lyx-devel/release (add the PPA for the 'release', i.e. stable, compilation)
sudo apt-get update (update so that apt is aware of the new PPA)
sudo apt-get install lyx (install from the PPA)

Then I removed LyX once more and tried another fresh installation using Synaptic. Neither method had solved the problem for me until I installed "fonts-lyx" (version: 2.2.4-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) using Synaptic. This solved the problem. After that I updated LyX using Terminal and "fonts-lyx (to version: 2.3.4.2-1~bionic~ppa1)" using Synaptic.

LaTeX.org

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