[2043] in athena10
Re: TeX and a4 (Re: [Debathena] #131: dvips uses a4 paper)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Fri Apr 3 21:24:59 2009
Cc: Debathena Trac <debathena@mit.edu>, jhawk@mit.edu, broder@mit.edu,
geofft@mit.edu
Message-Id: <ADE33FA6-DDD6-490D-8B7D-70DB60016C42@mit.edu>
From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
To: Anders Kaseorg <andersk@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.00.0904032102310.6942@vinegar-pot.mit.edu>
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Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 21:24:40 -0400
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On Apr 3, 2009, at 9:15 PM, Anders Kaseorg wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Apr 2009, Jonathan Reed wrote:
>> Also, if I'm reading the zlogs correctly, even when A4 documents
>> printed
>> successfully on letter paper, they came out looking ugly with weird
>> margins
>> (since A4 is 8.26" x 11.69"). Will such a printout be accepted for
>> theses,
>> for example? (Does it have 1" margins on all sides as per
>> http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/thesis-specs/#margins?) If so,
>> then fine.
>> If not, I would hate to see someone print out a huge thesis only to
>> find out
>> the margins are all ugly and they just wasted 100 sheets of paper.
>
> 1. This may be a problem for the user, but not for everyone else
> using the
> printer (e.g. it doesn’t stall the print queue).
>
> 2. TeX does not use 1 inch margins by default, no matter what paper
> size
> you set. You will need to tweak them _somehow_.
>
> 3. Setting the paper size with texconfig does not actually affect the
> height or width of the text on the page. So for example, if you
> compile a
> document with no specified paper size or geometry under `texconfig
> paper
> letter`, the bottom margin will be .69″ smaller than it would be
> under A4,
> and the right margin, .24″ wider.
I was unclear, what I meant was, if I specify 1" margins in my
document without specifying paper size (which will presumably default
to A4), and I then print the resulting document onto letter size paper
(without specifying any paper size options to dvips or lpr), will the
margins still be at least 1" on all sides? If yes, then this is a non-
issue.
-Jon
