LyX ⇒ Cannot Save, View PDF

[09jw]

I have been a Lyx user for a few years but I'm not particularly computer savvy, so I'm sorry if these questions seem naive.

I recently got a new laptop (Mac OSX 10.9.4). I downloaded MacTex and then Lyx (2.1.2) and was running into problems (detailed below). I uninstalled the MacTex stuff I had on my computer, and installed BasicTex and reinstalled Lyx. I ran into the same problems. I have not encountered any problems with normal Latex editors (e.g.TeXedit).

So here are the problems: I cannot save files. Lyx says the selected document class requires files that are unavailable. It says I need to download the prerequisite article.cls. This confuses me because I assumed this would come with MacTex (and BasicTex). When I go into settings there are no virtually no document classes available to select.

What's worse is that I can't view any PDFs. When I type in the command to see a PDF preview I get an error message: "An error occurred while running: latex2rtf." Earlier yesterday (before installing BasicTex and reinstalling Lyx) I would simply get the command disabled message, which also confused me because I had checked my settings with respect to the commands and it all should have been working fine.

When I try to fiddle with settings I am given very few options. Many of the dropdown menus are in gray or don't display options. Also, I'm not sure what this indicates, but in the past when I would write something in math mode and then start writing something else the math text would be blue and italicized for a moment and then change color and look as it is in a PDF file. However, when I write things in math mode now I am left with text that is blue and italicized and does not change.

So I'm very confused by all this. If you have any ideas they would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[scottkosty]

Sounds frustrating, 09jw.

The problem is that LyX is not finding your LaTeX installation. You can ask LyX to search for it again by going to "Reconfigure" (I think for Macs it is under the LyX menu? If not, look around). After you run that, restart LyX and see if it worked.

If that doesn't work, then you should consider asking for help on your LaTeX installation. Although it's possible it's a LyX bug, in every case I've seen it was a problem with the LaTeX installation.

[09jw]

Thanks for the reply!

I downloaded an old version of Lyx (2.0.8) and now things are working smoothly.