Bug#225833: Letter vs A4 again
Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu> wrote:
> Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> writes:
>
>> Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > would describe this, Debian users expect packages to user /etc/papersize and
>> > work automatically and won't have read any install document before installing
>> > the package.
>>
>> OpenOffice doesn't use libpaper, either. And I think this is a sane
>> decision: A program that is designed to handle different paper sizes on
>> a document-per-document basis should not assume some system-wide
>> default. This will only confuse things.
>
> You have to default to something, it may as well be something reasonable. You
> would prefer eliminating /etc/papersize and having every package have its own
> configuration?
No, the point is that for LaTeX this means to give the user a false
feeling of security. As soon as they move to a different system,
they'll complain that LaTeX stopped to produce correct paper sizes.
Better do it correct from the start.
> Or having the user have to set the paper size on every document?
For a LaTeX document, yes. It's easy; just use \geometry to set your
margins, and it will also set the paper size; or use typearea which does
the same; or use a class that does it automatically (like the
koma-script classes, don't know about memoir).
However, I'm not completely opposed to respecting /etc/papersize. I
just don't think it's important or at least a really good idea.
Therefore I'm not going to try to come up with a proposal how it should
work exactly, let alone an implementation. But, as I think I've already
said earlier in this or one of the merged bugs: If anybody provides a
working patch, I'm willing to give it a try.
>> That's just the same as new users don't know how to specifiy unusual
>> page geometries, or include a picture, or whatever.
>
> You seem to be equating configuring paper sizes with run-time usage like
> understanding how to write LaTeX code.
Yes, I do.
> But it's not the same thing at all,
> it's generally a one-time configuration at install time.
No, it isn't. You forget that you can produce documents of different
sizes with LaTeX, and people actually do this - from business cards to
posters, not to forget CD labels or covers. Nowadays, people also
produce documents which are not meant to be printed at their own
printer, or not for printing at all.
> Normally users would
> expect a system with TeX installed would already be configured properly by the
> sysadmin when the package was installed.
I'll answer as if you'd had replaces "properly" by "to use the default
printer's papersize". Maybe you are right and this is what some Debian
users expect. But I am sure it is not what a LaTeX user expects who
switches from Windows, Mac or other Linux distros to Debian (or just
uses them in parallel).
> I still think the right thing is obviously to provide a script to set
> tetexconfig-sys paper based on /etc/papersize. Run it on install and print a
Please write such a script, we'll have a look at it.
> message noting that it has to be rerun any time /etc/papersize is changed.
No, not a message. A message to stdout or stderr is useless and won't
be seen among all those other messages, and a debconf note would be
abusive.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)
Reply to: