The aim of this piece of text is mainly to sum up how a LyX file should look if -in a perfect world- the style and class files are provided by the publishers..



BioMed style :

They provide following files (with instructions) in a tar.gz file :



1. Bibliography

For the BibTeX reference, just choose the *.bst file -wherever you unpacked it. This works fine, no additional things are needed.


2. The Lyx class files

Download the lyx class files (*.cls) and copy them to where TeX and LyX can find them (requires root):

e.g. for TeX : /usr/share/texmf-tetex/tex/latex/base
e.g. for LyX : /usr/share/lyx/layouts

Then type at the prompt whilst root : texhash
and reconfigure LyX by choosing Reconfigure in the pulldown menu of Tools


3. The Lyx Document - Body

However, the start of the LyX file seems more problematic

Below you'll find a screen shot of how it looks in LyX at the beginning of a new LyX document:































  1. Begin your new LyX document with an ERT that contains “\begin{bmcformat}”

  2. It is important that the “authors” ERT stands before the “address”ERT, since we are referring in the latter to the former.. In addition, be carefull with the notation, extra spaces where they shouldn't won't make your life easier ;-)

  3. Also important is that these ERTs are placed above the title. Although it seems pretty fancy and daring to place authors and addresses on top of the title, this layout will only be your secret since the viewing mode shows them beneath the title. (The ones that place it beneath the title in the LyX mode, will experience problems with “\maketitle”.. => that is if you are using LyX 1.4.5.1. like me.

  4. End the document with : \end{bmcformat} in ERT mode



4. The Lyx Document - Settings

In order to make LyX find everything, you'll need “.lyx” directory in your home dir. Usually it is there already :-) .. and contains several files and subdirs. Place a bmc.layout file there. As the clever ones already noticed, this file is not included in the standard package and was kindly provided to me by Werner Van Belle .. Below I paste the contents of the file, so you can just copy paste it and name a bmc.layout file for yourself..

#% Do not delete the line below; configure depends on this
# \DeclareLaTeXClass[bmc_article]{bmc_article}
# Report textclass definition file. Taken from initial LyX source code
# Author : Matthias Ettrich <ettrich@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>
# Transposed by Pascal André <andre@via.ecp.fr>
# Heavily modifed and enhanced by serveral developers.

# Input general definitions
Input stdclass.inc

# a few changes to the bibliography
Style Bibliography
TopSep 4
LabelString Bibliography

# label font definition
LabelFont
Series Bold
Size Huge
EndFont
End


After the creation of this lovely file, you should reconfigure LyX and restart it. Then you should be able to select “bmc_article” inthe “Document-Settings-Document Class”.


Font sizes should be set to 10pt in my case, but may differ from journal to journal within the BioMedCentral ..


Then go to LaTeX preamble and paste the following :

\usepackage{cite} % Make references as [1-4], not [1,2,3,4]

\usepackage{url} % Formatting web addresses

\usepackage{ifthen} % Conditional

\usepackage{multicol} %Columns

%\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} %unicode support

%\usepackage[applemac]{inputenc} %applemac support if unicode package fails

%\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} %UNIX support if unicode package fails

\urlstyle{rm}

\usepackage{ifthen}

\usepackage{multicol} %Columns

\newboolean{publ}

%Review style settings

\newenvironment{bmcformat}{\begin{raggedright}\baselineskip20pt\sloppy\setboolean{publ}{false}}{\end{raggedright}\baselineskip20pt\sloppy}

%Publication style settings

%\newenvironment{bmcformat}{\fussy\setboolean{publ}{true}}{\fussy}


=> I guess that's it for BioMedCentral.. if anything else pops up.. I'll post it :-)