"landscape" option does not work

[Spectrum (Claus Appel)]

Hello.

I am trying to make a slide presentation in LaTeX. But I cannot figure
out how to make it landscape formatted (ie., with the page "lying
down", as is the default for slides).

I've tried using the "slides" class, like this:

\documentclass[landscape]{slides}

The [landscape] option does nothing. I don't get an error message, but
I my PDF or DVI file stays protrait-formatted. I've found that the
same behaviour persists when using other document classes, such as
article: "landscape" does nothing. I don't understand why this is.

I have also tried the "prosper" class and the "HA-prosper" package. I
can't find out how to make it landscape-shaped in regular prosper, but
HA-prosper allegedly has a "landscape" option. So I do this:

\usepackage[landscape]{HA-prosper}

And TeX dies with the following error message:

\IfFileExists{HAP\***@[e-mail]}{%
\RequirePackage{HAP\***@Style@chosen}%
}{\PackageError{HA-prosper}{unknown HA-prosper style file: HAP
\***@[e-mail]}%
{Sorry, no additional help}}
\ifx\***@normalSlide\@undefined
\PackageError{HA-prosper}{HA-prosper normal slide is
not defined in your template}%
{Check that your template HAP\***@[e-mail] supports
normal slides and that it is up to date}%

Does this mean I need to install something?

Can anyone help me? Why is "landscape" not working?

Thanks in advance.

[vvvv]

You need to compile the LaTeX document using the pslatex program
instead of the "latex" or "pdflatex" programs. I tried compiling with
the wrong program and I could not override the paper size. Here is a
page that links to prosper on the CTAN site, but the documentation
looks sparse:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/ha-prosper/Doc/

Another thing to consider is to try the beamer package. The beamer
package is being maintained and has some decent features, and lots of
people on this forum use it.

Here is a complete example for prosper that works for me (this is my
first time using prosper, so I'm not sure about all the options).
COMPILE WITH THE PSLATEX PROGRAM!!



\documentclass[pdf,distiller,final,total,slideColor,colorBG,whitecross]
{prosper}
% compile this with pslatex instead of "latex" or "pdflatex"
\usepackage[toc,highlight,HA]{HA-prosper}
\usepackage{color}
%\setlength{\paperheight}{6.375in}%vvv added
%\setlength{\paperwidth}{6.375in}
\begin{document}
\begin{slide}[trans=Replace]{Sample slide}
hello world.
\end{slide}
\begin{slide}[trans=Replace]{Sample slide}
hello again.
\end{slide}
\end{document}

[Spectrum (Claus Appel)]

Your example doesn't work for me. It compiles fine (with pslatex), but
it's still portrait-shaped.

But I tried out the beamer class, and it seems to work. At least, I
can make it landscape-shaped now.

Thanks for the help.

[Ulrike Fischer]

Post by Spectrum (Claus Appel)
I am trying to make a slide presentation in LaTeX. But I cannot figure
out how to make it landscape formatted (ie., with the page "lying
down", as is the default for slides).
\documentclass[landscape]{slides}
The [landscape] option does nothing. I don't get an error message, but
I my PDF or DVI file stays protrait-formatted. I've found that the
same behaviour persists when using other document classes, such as
article: "landscape" does nothing. I don't understand why this is.

This old classes don't set the needed \special-commands for the paper
size.

Try \usepackage[dvips]{geometry}.

http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=papersize