Margins in LaTeX

[Chris Grant]

Hello,

I'm trying to make myself a template for standard school essays, which require
one-inch margins on all sides of the paper. I've read up on the different
parameters I need to modify, but I can't seem to get exactly one inch of
whitespace around the text. Could someone help me out with this?


Thanks,

[Tom Micevski]

Post by Chris Grant
Hello,
I'm trying to make myself a template for standard school essays, which require
one-inch margins on all sides of the paper. I've read up on the different
parameters I need to modify, but I can't seem to get exactly one inch of
whitespace around the text. Could someone help me out with this?
Thanks,

\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}

[Sean Clarke]

Post by Tom Micevski

Post by Chris Grant
Hello,
I'm trying to make myself a template for standard school essays, which
require one-inch margins on all sides of the paper. I've read up on the
different parameters I need to modify, but I can't seem to get exactly
one inch of whitespace around the text. Could someone help me out with
this?
Thanks,

\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}

I just tried this myself (as it was what I wanted to look for), my right
hand margin is fine, however the lefthand margin looks to be 3cm (ie +.5cm
on desired)

Any ideas?

Also I'd like to compress the whitespace between bullet points, any ideas
also?

Many thanks

[Lars Madsen]

Post by Sean Clarke

Post by Tom Micevski

Post by Chris Grant
Hello,
I'm trying to make myself a template for standard school essays, which
require one-inch margins on all sides of the paper. I've read up on the
different parameters I need to modify, but I can't seem to get exactly
one inch of whitespace around the text. Could someone help me out with
this?
Thanks,

\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}

I just tried this myself (as it was what I wanted to look for), my right
hand margin is fine, however the lefthand margin looks to be 3cm (ie +.5cm
on desired)
Any ideas?
Also I'd like to compress the whitespace between bullet points, any ideas
also?
Many thanks

there might be some binding correction. Which version of geometry are you using?

[Arjen Bax]

Post by Sean Clarke

Post by Tom Micevski
\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}

I just tried this myself (as it was what I wanted to look for), my right
hand margin is fine, however the lefthand margin looks to be 3cm (ie +.5cm
on desired)

I guess that you are printing on letter size paper and that the geometry
package thinks that you are using a4 paper.
Specify package option paper=letterpaper when loading geometry.sty (or
use a4 paper when printing).

HTH,

[Brooks Moses]

Post by Chris Grant
I'm trying to make myself a template for standard school essays, which require
one-inch margins on all sides of the paper. I've read up on the different
parameters I need to modify, but I can't seem to get exactly one inch of
whitespace around the text. Could someone help me out with this?

Is if you're converting your files to PDF and using Adobe Acrobat to
print them, there's a fairly common problem that would cause that --
Acrobat has a strange default of shrinking the page "to fit", by which
it means making it so that the entire page (including whatever margin
was already defined) fits within the printable part of the paper. Thus
the printout has your actual margin from the file (shrunk slightly) plus
whatever margin the printer calls unprintable area.

Also, a common problem if you're using latex rather than pdflatex, and
then using dvips or dvipdf to convert the output to printable form, is
to have dvips (or dvipdf) set up to use the wrong paper size, since dvi
files don't (I think) carry the paper-size information. If LaTeX is
correctly formatting the page to fit on letter paper with 1" margins,
and then dvips puts it on an A4 paper size, the margins will look just
enough wrong to notice when you view the file in Ghostscript.

- Brooks

[Robert Heller]

Brooks Moses <bmoses-***@cits1.stanford.edu>,
In a message on Mon, 15 Sep 2003 21:46:59 -0700, wrote :

BM> Chris Grant wrote:
BM> > I'm trying to make myself a template for standard school essays, which require
BM> > one-inch margins on all sides of the paper. I've read up on the different
BM> > parameters I need to modify, but I can't seem to get exactly one inch of
BM> > whitespace around the text. Could someone help me out with this?
BM>
BM> Is if you're converting your files to PDF and using Adobe Acrobat to
BM> print them, there's a fairly common problem that would cause that --
BM> Acrobat has a strange default of shrinking the page "to fit", by which
BM> it means making it so that the entire page (including whatever margin
BM> was already defined) fits within the printable part of the paper. Thus
BM> the printout has your actual margin from the file (shrunk slightly) plus
BM> whatever margin the printer calls unprintable area.
BM>
BM> Also, a common problem if you're using latex rather than pdflatex, and
BM> then using dvips or dvipdf to convert the output to printable form, is
BM> to have dvips (or dvipdf) set up to use the wrong paper size, since dvi
BM> files don't (I think) carry the paper-size information. If LaTeX is
BM> correctly formatting the page to fit on letter paper with 1" margins,
BM> and then dvips puts it on an A4 paper size, the margins will look just
BM> enough wrong to notice when you view the file in Ghostscript.

This is 'cured' with 'dvips -t letter' or by editing your config.ps file
to change the default.


BM>
BM> - Brooks
BM>

\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: ***@cs.umass.edu
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || ***@deepsoft.com
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153

[Andreas Keil]

I'm not 100% sure about the above lines because I'm using the KOMA-Script
package (scrartcl, scrbook, ...) for a long time now which has a

convenient

typearea-command to set all the margins.

Sorry, I made a small mistake: The package you need to include (unless you
use one of the KOMA-Script styles 'scrartcl', ...) is called 'typearea', the
command name is '\areaset'.

Andreas

[Dan Luecking]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 10:39:42 +0200, "Andreas Keil"

If your problem is to set the margins correctly (because of LaTeX's various
and mysterious default margins), the following four commands should give you
--- cut ---
% 8.5in paper width -2x1in margin = 6.5in text width
\setlength{\textwidth}{6.5in}
% 11in paper height -2x1in margin = 9in text height
\setlength{\textheight}{9in}
% set 1in left margin and substract 1in default margin on left
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{1in} \addtolength{\oddsidemargin}{-1in}
% set 1in top margin and substract 1.5in default margin on top
\setlength{\topmargin}{1in} \addtolength{\topmargin}{-1.5in}

Plus these two if there are no running heads:
\setlength{\headheight}{0pt}
\setlength{\headsep}{0pt}

If there are running heads, decrease \textheight by the sum of the
above two lengths (otherwise the bottom marging will be smaller
than 1in):
\addtolength{\textheight}{-\headheight}
\addtolength{\textheight}{-\headsep}

If the heads should be part of the 1in margin, do not decrease
\textheight, but rather decrease \topmargin in the same manner.


Dan