1. Install LyX (with the QT frontend)

    In Debian, you need to run 'apt-get install lyx-qt'.

  2. Install the Hebrew Latex macros.

    In Debian, just run 'apt-get install ivritex'.

    A RPM for RedHat/Mandrake is available here.

  3. Install Hebrew fonts. (for example, Culmus fonts or Truetype fonts.)

  4. If you haven't use LyX before, run LyX in order to create the directory ~/.lyx/ and exit.
  5. Download the file hebrew.bind and put it in ~/.lyx/bind/
  6. Put the preferences file in ~/.lyx/

    For the Windows port of LyX, you also need to add the line
    \auto_number false
     to ~/.lyx/preferences

    Alternatively, you you can use the preferences dialog in the following way:

    1. Goto Look&Feel>Screen fonts tab. Select Hebrew fonts.
    2. Goto Look&Feel>User Interface tab. Change bind file to "hebrew".
    3. Goto Goto Look&Feel>Keyboard tab. Enable the "Use keyboard map" button, and enter null as 1st keymap, and hebrew as the 2nd keymap.
    4. Goto Language settings>Language tab. Enable the "Right-to-left language support" button.
    5. Press the save button.

    If you have an old LaTeX distribution, you may also need to instruct LyX to use elatex instead on latex: Goto Converters tab. Select the latex>DVI converter, and change the converter to "elatex $$i". Press the modify button. Also, change the latex>PDF(pdflatex) converter to "pdfelatex $$i".

  7. Before running lyx, set the LANG environment variable to 'he_IL'. This can be done in .bashrc/.tcshrc. Alternatively, alias lyx to 'env LANG=he_IL lyx'.
  8. To write a Hebrew document, change the document language to Hebrew in the document layout dialog (select Layout>Document from the menu, and then select the language tab). For a document in English (or other language) that contains Hebrew, just select the appropriate main language.

    Also, in either case, select default input encoding in the document layout dialog.

  9. To switch from Hebrew to English press F12.

    The direction of the whole paragraph is determined by the direction of its first char. This causes a problem if you start a Hebrew paragraph with an English word, as the paragraph will be considered Left-to-Right. To solve this problem, insert a note as the first char of the paragraph, and make sure that its language is Hebrew.