LyX ⇒ Changing Environment settings

[turbine]

Hello all,

I am new to LyX and Latex. My question is rather simple. When I select the paragraph environment the text appears bold in the DVI and the PDF output..I want to change it back to normal size. How do I do it ??

Or should I ask..Can we do it ??

[kaiserkarl13]

Yes, it's possible, though I encourage you to ask the question of why you want to do this before diving in.

Look in your LaTeX distribution for the document class file you're using, and find the definition of \paragraph. For example, in the standard article class the definition is

Code: Select all

\newcommand\paragraph{\@startsection{paragraph}{4}{\z@}%
         {3.25ex \@plus1ex \@minus.2ex}%
         {-1em}%
         {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}}

If I wanted this to be Roman (instead of bold), I could put the following in the preamble (which you can do in LyX as well using the "LaTeX Preamble" settings)

Code: Select all

\makeatletter
\renewcommand\paragraph{\@startsection{paragraph}{4}{\z@}%
         {3.25ex \@plus1ex \@minus.2ex}%
         {-1em}%
         {\normalfont\normalsize\mdseries}}
\makeatother

This sets paragraphs in "medium" series fonts instead of "boldface" series fonts. Why you would want to do this is another matter.

It's possible that there is some confusion about paragraphs (as in, document text) and paragraphs (as in, the sectioning command higher than a subparagraph and lower than a subsubsection). You won't see the \paragraph command used much unless you have a very structured document with lots of information in it. Legal documents come to mind, as to some scientific documents (Lawyers often like to number their paragraphs, which can be done with LaTeX as well).

If you just want plain old document text, don't use the \paragraph command; just start typing.