[OS X TeX] 1/2" margins

[Morten Høgholm]

On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:01:48 +0200, Themis Matsoukas <matsoukas at psu.edu>  
wrote:

> On Oct 11, 2006, at 4:05 PM, Georg Verweyen wrote:
>
>> Themis Matsoukas schrieb:
>>>     \textwidth = 6.5 in
>>>     \oddsidemargin = 0.0 in
>>>     \evensidemargin= 0.0 in
>>>     \textheight = 9.0 in
>>>     \topmargin =-0.5 in
>>>
>>> and you can play around with the numbers (I no longer remember what  
>>> they mean). But that way you don't need any special packages.
>> That's a good way to mess up the design completly -- »no longer  
>> remember what they mean«. It is so much more complicated to say  
>> \usepackage[margin=.5in]{geometry} and even worse everyone can guess  
>> what this means. ;-)
>
> It depends. To implement these margins I use the personal command \wide,  
> which I define inside a custom package full of such little personal  
> conveniences, and I haven't had the need to change any of these numbers  
> in the last 15 years. I see your point, of course. But I also see the  
> point in not having to load an entire package just to use one of its  
> commands.

While there is a certain element of truth in your last statement, it is  
not a terribly good argument to use about a package with one (1) user  
command, namely \geometry.

Besides adding an interface to LaTeX page designs humans (and especially  
designers) can relate to and doing all the tedious tasks of checking  
values have been set correctly etc., geometry also adds crucial touches  
like making sure the correct page size is set for the output driver such  
as dvips, dvipdfm, or pdfTeX.

I for one of course is rather biased in this area because a) I am  
interested in page design and how to make it work for LaTeX3 (currently  
writing an article about that) and b) I am all about using keyval syntax  
like for geometry so that non-TeXnicians are shielded from the underlying  
nitty-gritty.
-- 
Morten
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