[tex-live] TL2005 for Windows: paper size revisited

[Paweł Jackowski]

Hi there,

> I don't care to debate this on the list, but I have to express my strong
> disagreement.  Not that I have any power to implement anything, so if
> you just want to ignore me, feel free :).  Without a feature like this,
> *every user in North America* has to figure out how to change the dvips,
> dvipdfm[x], and pdftex config files to get a working TeX setup.  It is
> no fun at all, believe me.  It's things like this that make upgrades
> so painful.

Not going to ignore you, but can't see any relation between the lack of 
letter/a4 defaults and painful upgrades. Upgrades are painful indeed, 
because two subsequent TLs never match the previous, that is because 
there are still people thinking how to make things better and better -) 
Anyway, the configuration part might be a horror, as configuring any 
other nonGUI system and I agree that some kind of tex 'contol panel' is 
necessary to popularize TeX. Will think about.

> The problem is not document-level packages and formats.  The problem is
> getting the programs' defaults set for documents which specify no paper
> size, which is virtually all of them (whatever Hans's theories are, the
> world does not operate that way).

So which way the world operate?? Certainly, the world doesn't use TeX. 
It is not just Hans theory, that document size and layout are dependent 
-- sounds quite obvious to me. Pure TeX doesn't allow to specify the 
final page brutto size and *that* is the way the world doesn't operate 
nowadays. Anyway, as you, I don't feel like continuing paper-debate. For 
the moment I have no doubts, that some tex-config-helper would be fine. 
And no ideas how that should work -) Meybe Tomek or Staszek has -- will 
discuss.

All the best,
-- 
Pawe/l Jackowski
P.Jackowski at gust.org.pl