[tex-live] paper size (ubuntu)

[Zdenek Wagner]

2009/4/12 George N. White III <gnwiii at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Mircea Trandafir <tramir at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey everybody,
>>
>> I have the following problem: I installed TeXLive 2008 from source on Ubuntu
>> 8.10 (fully updated) using these instructions (except for the PATH thing,
>> where I used the last comment on the same page). I chose "letter" as the
>> default paper size for everything and checked that all the configuration
>> files in /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/ have the paper size defined
>> as letter. I also have /etc/papersize = letter. I checked and overchecked
>> all the settings, ran "sudo tlmgr paper letter" and so on, but whatever I
>> do, my LaTeX documents get compiled as A4. Anybody has any idea how I could
>> solve it?
>>
>> TIA...
>
> Using much the same configuration, but without symlinks, I get letter output.
> We need to figure out where your configuration has gone astray.  In my
> experience,
> problems like this generally result from some stray configuration file
> that may be
> left over from a previous TeX install, or contributed by some package
> you installed.
>
> Note: you may find it helpful to install the dummy texlive-local .deb
> package (recently
> described on this list) so other packages don't try to pull in the
> Ubunt tex packages.
>
> Are you using latex to get dvi output or pdflatex to get pdf output?   With dvi
> files, papersize is determined by the dvi to whatever program, e.g. for dvips:
> $ kpsewhich config.ps
> /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/dvips/config/config.ps
>
> If you are using pdflatex, then the default papersize is set in
>
> $ kpsewhich pdftexconfig.tex
> /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/tex/generic/config/pdftexconfig.tex
>
> dvipdfmx has yet another config file:
>
> $ kpsewhich -progname=dvipdfmx dvipdfmx.cfg
> /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/dvipdfmx/dvipdfmx.cfg
>
>  I think there was a bug in an early version of tlmgr where
> dvipdfmx.cfg was not getting the papersize setting.
>
> The papersize can be altered using a \special in the dvi file.  Some latex
> styles set papersize -- can you show us exactly how you produce
> sample2e.pdf or sample2e.ps, e.g.,
>
\special{papersize=...} is used by dvips and dvipdfm(x), not by
pdftex, it takes the paper dimensions from \pdfpageheight and
\pdfpagewith. Some packages set the dimensions, e.g. geometry.sty or
my zwpagelayout.sty. My zwpagelayout.sty looks whether pdflatext is
used, if so, \pdfpageheight and \pdfpagewidth are set, if not,
\special{papersize=...} is used. The default papersize is always A4

BTW: I have always thought whether zwpagelayout could get the default
paper size from the global TL configuration. I have just an idea:
LaTeX defines dimensions \paperheight and \paperwidth. Some file may
contain these assignments and my package would read it by
\InputIfFileExists. The package internals do not care about the names
of the paper formats, only the dimensions matter. Such a file could be
reusable with other LaTeX packages.

> $ pdflatex sample2e ; pdfinfo sample2e.pdf
> This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.1415926-1.40.9 (Web2C 7.5.7)
>  %&-line parsing enabled.
> entering extended mode
> (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/sample2e.tex
> LaTeX2e <2005/12/01>
> Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh
> yphenation, basque, pinyin, french, ukenglish, loaded.
> (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
> Document Class: article 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
> (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (./sample2e.aux
> ) (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omscmr.fd) [1{/usr/local/t
> exlive/2008/texmf-var/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}] [2] [3]
> (./sample2e.aux) )</usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/bluesky/cm/cm
> bx12.pfb>[...]
> Output written on sample2e.pdf (3 pages, 69554 bytes).
> Transcript written on sample2e.log.
> Creator:        TeX
> Producer:       pdfTeX-1.40.9
> CreationDate:   Sun Apr 12 09:32:38 2009
> ModDate:        Sun Apr 12 09:32:38 2009
> Tagged:         no
> Pages:          3
> Encrypted:      no
> Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
> File size:      69554 bytes
> Optimized:      no
> PDF version:    1.4
>
> 8$ latex sample2e ; dvips  sample2e -o ;  grep -i paper sample2e.ps
> This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.1415926-1.40.9 (Web2C 7.5.7)
>  %&-line parsing enabled.
> entering extended mode
> (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/sample2e.tex
> LaTeX2e <2005/12/01>
> Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh
> yphenation, basque, pinyin, french, ukenglish, loaded.
> (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
> Document Class: article 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
> (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (./sample2e.aux
> ) (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omscmr.fd) [1] [2]
> [3] (./sample2e.aux) )
> Output written on sample2e.dvi (3 pages, 7484 bytes).
> Transcript written on sample2e.log.
> This is dvips(k) 5.97 Copyright 2008 Radical Eye Software (www.radicaleye.com)
> ' TeX output 2009.04.12:0937' -> sample2e.ps
> </usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf/dvips/base/tex.pro>
> </usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf/dvips/base/texps.pro>.
> </usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/bluesky/cm/cmr8.pfb>
> [...]
> [1] [2]
> [3]
> %%DocumentPaperSizes: Letter
> %%BeginPaperSize: Letter
> %%EndPaperSize
>
> $ dvipdfmx sample2e ;pdfinfo sample2e.pdf
> sample2e.dvi -> sample2e.pdf
> [1][2][3]
> 38594 bytes written
> Creator:         TeX output 2009.04.12:0937
> Producer:       dvipdfmx (20080607)
> CreationDate:   Sun Apr 12 10:17:42 2009
> Tagged:         no
> Pages:          3
> Encrypted:      no
> Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
> File size:      38594 bytes
> Optimized:      no
> PDF version:    1.4
>
>
> Dvips and dvipdfmx have debugging options, and you can set debug levels
> for kpse.
>
> Using linux, you can run the programs with "strace" and scan for configuration
> files to determine exactly which files were used.    You might want to do
> "locate config.ps" and "locate pdftexconfig.tex" to check for
> extraneous versions.
>
> --
> George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
>



-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz