[tex-live] paper size (ubuntu)

[George N. White III]

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Mircea Trandafir <tramir at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hey everybody,
>
> I have the following problem: I installed TeXLive 2008 from source on Ubuntu
> 8.10 (fully updated) using these instructions (except for the PATH thing,
> where I used the last comment on the same page). I chose "letter" as the
> default paper size for everything and checked that all the configuration
> files in /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/ have the paper size defined
> as letter. I also have /etc/papersize = letter. I checked and overchecked
> all the settings, ran "sudo tlmgr paper letter" and so on, but whatever I
> do, my LaTeX documents get compiled as A4. Anybody has any idea how I could
> solve it?
>
> TIA...

Using much the same configuration, but without symlinks, I get letter output.
We need to figure out where your configuration has gone astray.  In my
experience,
problems like this generally result from some stray configuration file
that may be
left over from a previous TeX install, or contributed by some package
you installed.

Note: you may find it helpful to install the dummy texlive-local .deb
package (recently
described on this list) so other packages don't try to pull in the
Ubunt tex packages.

Are you using latex to get dvi output or pdflatex to get pdf output?   With dvi
files, papersize is determined by the dvi to whatever program, e.g. for dvips:
$ kpsewhich config.ps
/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/dvips/config/config.ps

If you are using pdflatex, then the default papersize is set in

$ kpsewhich pdftexconfig.tex
/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/tex/generic/config/pdftexconfig.tex

dvipdfmx has yet another config file:

$ kpsewhich -progname=dvipdfmx dvipdfmx.cfg
/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-config/dvipdfmx/dvipdfmx.cfg

 I think there was a bug in an early version of tlmgr where
dvipdfmx.cfg was not getting the papersize setting.

The papersize can be altered using a \special in the dvi file.  Some latex
styles set papersize -- can you show us exactly how you produce
sample2e.pdf or sample2e.ps, e.g.,

$ pdflatex sample2e ; pdfinfo sample2e.pdf
This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.1415926-1.40.9 (Web2C 7.5.7)
 %&-line parsing enabled.
entering extended mode
(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/sample2e.tex
LaTeX2e <2005/12/01>
Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh
yphenation, basque, pinyin, french, ukenglish, loaded.
(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (./sample2e.aux
) (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omscmr.fd) [1{/usr/local/t
exlive/2008/texmf-var/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map}] [2] [3]
(./sample2e.aux) )</usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/bluesky/cm/cm
bx12.pfb>[...]
Output written on sample2e.pdf (3 pages, 69554 bytes).
Transcript written on sample2e.log.
Creator:        TeX
Producer:       pdfTeX-1.40.9
CreationDate:   Sun Apr 12 09:32:38 2009
ModDate:        Sun Apr 12 09:32:38 2009
Tagged:         no
Pages:          3
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size:      69554 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.4

8$ latex sample2e ; dvips  sample2e -o ;  grep -i paper sample2e.ps
This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.1415926-1.40.9 (Web2C 7.5.7)
 %&-line parsing enabled.
entering extended mode
(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/sample2e.tex
LaTeX2e <2005/12/01>
Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh
yphenation, basque, pinyin, french, ukenglish, loaded.
(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (./sample2e.aux
) (/usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omscmr.fd) [1] [2]
[3] (./sample2e.aux) )
Output written on sample2e.dvi (3 pages, 7484 bytes).
Transcript written on sample2e.log.
This is dvips(k) 5.97 Copyright 2008 Radical Eye Software (www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2009.04.12:0937' -> sample2e.ps
</usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf/dvips/base/tex.pro>
</usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf/dvips/base/texps.pro>.
</usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/bluesky/cm/cmr8.pfb>
[...]
[1] [2]
[3]
%%DocumentPaperSizes: Letter
%%BeginPaperSize: Letter
%%EndPaperSize

$ dvipdfmx sample2e ;pdfinfo sample2e.pdf
sample2e.dvi -> sample2e.pdf
[1][2][3]
38594 bytes written
Creator:         TeX output 2009.04.12:0937
Producer:       dvipdfmx (20080607)
CreationDate:   Sun Apr 12 10:17:42 2009
Tagged:         no
Pages:          3
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size:      38594 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.4


Dvips and dvipdfmx have debugging options, and you can set debug levels
for kpse.

Using linux, you can run the programs with "strace" and scan for configuration
files to determine exactly which files were used.    You might want to do
"locate config.ps" and "locate pdftexconfig.tex" to check for
extraneous versions.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia