Bug#225833: 225833: letter vs A4 in TeX
On Mit, 31 Jan 2007, Frank Küster wrote:
> > I guess I am missing something, but isn't all this a simple question of
> > RTFM? ...
>
> I don't think so. To start with your finish:
Well, therefore I have added the section on README bekow ;-)
> > /etc/texmf/tex/latex/geometry/
> > and editing this file as described in the file.
>
> I think we can as well do this as distributors (either in Debian, or TeX
> Live).
Yes, definitely.
> Exactly. And this raises the question whether there is any reason not
> to write out dvips specials into the DVI file by default, doesn't it?
Yes, definitely.
> > OTOH, if you add the geometry package it selects automatically the pdftex
> > driver and the a5paper option from the documentclass is executed, so:
> > \documentclass[a5paper]{article}
> > \usepackage{geometry}
> > and pdfinfo gave me A5 paper as intended. As it should be.
>
> Yes, but why can we get this magic with PDF, but not with DVI?
Because geometry.sty *automatically* slects the pdftex driver if it is
run via pdf(la)tex. This is the point, it *DETECTS* that it is running
in pdf mode and uses the pdf "specials".
> > \usepackage[driver=dvips]{geometry}
>
> And I would actually *not* like to encourage people to hardcode this
> driver selection in their files. Too likely they also do it for
Or educate them to use the *right* driver.
> > Finally, for pdflatex, use the option driver=pdftex
>
> That's a superfluous option, IMO it should be deleted from geometry,
> since it does not make a difference whether it is specified or not.
I don't think so! It is only that geometry.sty detects pdftex and
activates this feature. Well, in this sense it is useless ;-)
> Which means we might as well use \ExecuteOptions{dvips} in geometry.cfg
> and have working documents without any change to the source.
Yes.
So the only question is: DO we do it as distributors or do we put a
comment in the README file.
Furthermore, if we do it as distributers, do we change the file
/usr/share/texmf-texlive/....
or do we put a file into
/etc/texmf/...
I would prefer the FIRST option to change the system wide geometry.cfg
and inform the users that they can override these defaults ...
Best wishes
Norbert
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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> Università di Siena
Debian Developer <preining@debian.org> Debian TeX Group
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