[tex-live] [OT] landscape class option

[Norbert Preining]

Hi all!

> >AM I stupid?
> >        \documentclass[a4paper,landscape]{article}
> >does not produce landscape text? Is this the intention? It does only
> >change the paperwidth and leaves the textwidth as it is. But at least
> >it changes the textheight.


On Fre, 30 Dez 2005, Peter Flynn wrote:
> \usepackage[landscape,margin=2cm]{geometry}

Ok, this is what I am doing now, too, but this *shouldn't* be necessary,
at least IMHO!

On Fre, 30 Dez 2005, Zdenek Wagner wrote:
> That's expected behaviour. LaTeX knows only the dimensions of the paper,
> rotation of the text to the landscape orientation is the task of the
> driver. You have to know which driver will be used for output and send the
> command to it. I have commands for dvips and pdftex in my private package.

Nup, wrong. (La)TeX has \textwidht and \textheight, and there is some
code in artcle.cls and the .clo files (I assume that you ment telling
dvips via -tlandscape that thisdocument is set in landscape mode, but
this is not what I am talking about):

article.cls:
\DeclareOption{landscape}
   {\setlength\@tempdima   {\paperheight}%
    \setlength\paperheight {\paperwidth}%
    \setlength\paperwidth  {\@tempdima}}

in size12.clo:
  \setlength\@tempdima{\paperwidth}
  \addtolength\@tempdima{-2in}
  \setlength\@tempdimb{390\p@}
(assume one column)
    \ifdim\@tempdima>\@tempdimb\relax
      \setlength\textwidth{\@tempdimb}
    \else
      \setlength\textwidth{\@tempdima}
    \fi

So the texwidth is tried to be set. But I beleive that this computation 
is done before the landscape mode is changed, and the textwidht is not 
recomputed (interestingly the textheight is!).

Best wishes

Norbert

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Norbert Preining <preining AT logic DOT at>             Università di Siena
gpg DSA: 0x09C5B094      fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WIDDICOMBE (n.)
The sort of person who impersonates trim phones.
			--- Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff