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I have recently started using LyX. I am having some issues that none of my classmates nor my instructors could help me with. Essentially whenever I close the application I and I reopen my document (only got to make 1 in LyX so far) the math environment shows up differently. Example: The left picture is an example of how it looks when I open the document. The right picture shows how I want it to show up in the middle.

The lambda symbol shows up wrong, any idea on how to fix this? Changing the font doesn't help.

first image second image

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  • Seems you are running into instant preview issues. Is the output PDF always correct? To make sure it is an instant preview issue, can you go to Tools > Preferences > Display and change "Instant preview" to "Off". Does everything display correctly now?
    – scottkosty
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 19:46
  • This helped. Thank you! You're a life saver!
    – Emil
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 19:56

1 Answer 1

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Short answer: turn off LyX's instant preview by going to Tools > Preferences > Display and change "Instant preview" to "Off".

Long answer: instant preview is a feature in LyX that allows you to view math as it would be shown in the final PDF output. It is a complicated feature and as such problems occur. Many of these problems have been fixed in LyX's upcoming 2.2.0 release. If you are interested, you may test the latest pre-release (currently beta2) by downloading the installers from here.

Advice: although it is nice to have the output as it would be displayed in the PDF, there are advantages to turning Instant Preview off, even if it is working. For example, using LyX's built-in math display, when you click in the middle of an equation, LyX will place the cursor exactly where you clicked. Using Instant Preview, you are essentially clicking on a picture so LyX does not know where to place your cursor (this could in theory be improved but would be quite difficult to do).

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  • FWIW to any interested (like @Emil, our OP), I have been running 2.2.0beta on OSX because of the Retina support. It has been very well-behaved for me, anyway.
    – Dɑvïd
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 20:39
  • @Davïd that's great to hear! Let us know if you have any feedback on it at the lyx-devel mailing list.
    – scottkosty
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 21:51
  • Any info on how to turn off the "instant preview" on the LyX v2.2.2 release? (this version does not have "preferences" show up under "Tools".) Restarting LyX seems to temporarily fix the above issue for me..
    – Seb
    Commented Aug 12, 2017 at 21:05
  • @Seb there are no preferences? Are you by chance on Mac? If so, maybe look under the "LyX" menu. There must be preferences in some menu entry or you have a broken installation.
    – scottkosty
    Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 2:53
  • The instant preview is showing pictures of other equations. Is there a way to "reset" the thumbnails, so that they are generated again?
    – a06e
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 8:34

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