[pdftex] hsize inaccurate

Hans Hagen pragma at wxs.nl
Tue Jun 29 11:22:51 CEST 2004


Robin Fairbairns wrote:

>>I have installed tetex-src-beta-2.96.4.20040627 (and the
>>corresponding tetex-texmf). The result is better, but still not correct.
>>pdfetex gives a 154mm paragraph, but tex with dvips are still perfect
>>at 160mm. Turning the document into a latex document and running
>>pdflatex gives the same result. 
>>
>>P.S. I've never had this sort of trouble with latex/dvips but I'd prefer
>>to switch to pdftex to enable the use of png/pdf images instead of
>>eps (which tends to be a bit bulkier). 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>% The following file prints perfectly (i.e., the paragraph is 160mm wide)
>>>>% with tex and dvips. But with pdftex the paragraph is 146mm wide and
>>>>% the font is smaller.
>>>>        
>>>>
>
>i've just noticed the magic word "prints" there...
>
>acrocr at p reader does this -- if you have "fit to page" (or equivalent)
>checked in printing options, it changes the size of your output even
>if it would happily fit on the paper in the printer.
>
>this is a ***bug*** in acrocr at p which idiot adobe insist is a feature.
>  
>
the "scaling to fit to page" *print* option takes the printer characteristics (as communicated by the operating system) into account; many printers have a so called non printable area (often about .5cm); the reason for this is a that ink or toner ending up outside the paper can (will) mess up the printer; since the scaling feature is related to printing, it's indeed a feature and not a bug; if your pages are filled to the edge it's better to have them printed slighty smaller than to end up with unreadable pages (web browsers' print engines tend to produce such pages)

Hans 

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