[tex-live] paper size special

[Zdenek Wagner]

2016-05-29 0:15 GMT+02:00 Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org>:

>     except that all other drivers support it in an incompatible way..
>
> How unsurprising.
>
>     was dvisvgm but I didn't understand its size at all:
>     etex pagesize; dvisvgm pagesize
>     pre-processing DVI file (format 2)
>     processing page 1
>       page size: 217.359pt x 664.121pt (76.3929mm x 233.412mm)
>
> I believe dvisvgm trying to create an includable graphic rather than a
> full page, thus it's more or less the bounding box of the output?  Full
> pages are not what SVG files are for, after all.  The papersize special
> is not mentioned on the dvisvgm man page.  Could ask MartinG and/or look
> at the source if it matters.
>
>     So... I was wondering if dvi drivers that support special{papersize=
>     could agree on how to treat multiple instances?
>
> If the only thing we have to change is dvips, per your experiments, that
> is feasible, in principle.  It certainly seems more feasible than
> changing "everything else".  And also the behavior (last special on
> first page wins) seems better -- matches pdftex better.
>
>     Changing (say) dvips would of course affect the behaviour of any
>     document that has this set twice (eg has hyperref and geometry both
>     loaded) so it's not necessarily a good idea,
>
> Let's suppose, hypothetically, that we change dvips to match the others
> (with an option so people can get the old behavior if they want it, etc.).
>
> Would this imply you would then make further changes in latex?  If so,
> what?
>
> And, are any changes in this area desirable at all in latex2e?  I am
> skeptical.  Whatever the deficiencies and suboptimalities of the current
> situation (no argument that there are plenty), people have necessarily
> figured out how to get the page sizes they want with the software they
> want.  If we make any changes, I highly suspect existing workflows will
> break, and not in any obvious way.
>
> Or am I being too negative?  -k
>

I am skeptical too. If I prepare a document to be printed on my office
printer, I use A4. However, I prepare more frequently books and leaflets
and in such cases A4 is really rare, the crop size is usuall A5, B5, C6 or
even a nonstandard size. And the media size must include the area for a
bleed box and for the crop marks. I am afraid LaTeX itself cannot do all
this, a package for layout definition will always be needed. This is why I
developed zwpagelayout because even geometry does not do all what I need.



Zdeněk Wagner
http://ttsm.icpf.cas.cz/team/wagner.shtml
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz
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