[texhax] Having trouble with roman numerals

[Uwe Lueck]

Mon Jun 15 03:29:07 CEST 2015, Frank E(a)rnest posted:
> P.S.: Funtoo [...] Sadly, all the latex packages are 
> in three bundles as of this writing, making it 
> difficult to figure out which package does what 
> for you.  
Same here on Lubuntu/Debian TeX Live up to a factor 
of about 10, until suddenly maintainers thought that 
with APT there were no need for tlmgr, I have prepared 
a rude posting about this weeks ago.  BTW: what's 
your name?  I seems to vary.

More detailed about what at least one found rude 
and/or ridiculus, on the fact that there is no 
problem with Roman numerals and no information 
about where to place a copyright mark, on the 
basis of which useful advice could be given:

> Well, page numbering in pdf, ps, and dvi files the
> numbering starts at the title, so I assumed that 
> that's what your supposed to do when you publish 
> pdf/ps/dvi docs.  Where should I put it, ideally?

put *what*?

> I tried reading other guides latex source but could
> not find any hints.

Your code line 

    \documentclass[...]{book}

and even the thread subject (as Roman page numbers 
typically are used in books) indicate that you are 
trying to typeset a *book*.  In the first instance, 
I think, you need to know how books usually look 
like.  Please take a few of them and look on which 
pages page numbers appear.

When you consult a LaTeX guide, such as The LaTeX 
Companion, you might not only read what is in the 
middle of the pages, you might also look for page 
numbers.  E.g., the first page number that is 
printed in The LaTeX Companion, 2nd (English) edition, 
is "viii".  In The TeXbook, it is "vi".  In a book 
from Clarendon Press, Oxford, that I just have beside 
me and which is *not* TeX-related, the first printed 
page number is "vi", too.

RK > You can't say \copyright{Frank Ernest 2015++} 
RK > because the control sequence \copyright isn't 
RK > defined anywhere or, if it is defined, has
RK > another meaning (it usually prints the copyright 
RK > symbol).

> Yes, that's what I thought, so, what markup keyword 
> should I use?

I insist, even after another morning, that you cannot 
expect a useful answer unless you tell what you want 
to *achieve* by such a markup keyword.  Something like 

    \textcopyright\ Frank Ernest 2015++

will place a respective string at a *single* place 
in the book.  However, when you change your original

    \date{04/22/2015}
    %copyright{Frank Ernest 2015++}
    \maketitle

into 

    \date{04/22/2015}
    \textcopyright\ Frank Ernest 2015++
    \maketitle
    
that single place will be two pages *before* the 
title page.  I insist even after a few mornings that 
this would be horrible.  (It would also conflict
 with your idea that page numbering starts with the 
 book's title.  Actually, when looking into real 
 books, you may observe that two pages before the 
 title page, which names authors/editors, there is 
 a page with the book's title only.)

When I typed my previous posting, I wondered what 
you expect a "copyright markup keyword" below
\author and \date and above \maketitle to result in.  
One interpretation is that you hope it results in 
placing the copyright string on the title page by 
\maketitle, as with \author and \date.  However, with 
Standard LaTeX, there is *no* "keyword" that inserts 
such a copyright statement on the title page 
straightforwardly; while you could use \author or 
even \date

    \date{06/16/2015\\[1ex]
          \textcopyright~Frank Ernest++}

or, perhaps more straightforwardly, \thanks.

I know about ways to place the copyright string on 
each page or on almost every second page, I told 
you, should *that* turn out to be your idea.

I did think of a code line for the copyright 
*above* \maketitle that could make sense:  With 
hyperref.sty, you can insert *metadata*, such 
as the author's name, by the keyword "pdfauthor", 
see section 3.7 of the manual.  I can't find 
"pdfcopyright", but "pdfinfo" might be used for 
such a purpose, not sure about "pdfproducer".

However, such information inserted in the PDF will 
not be printed, it may rather appear in the top 
line of the PDF viewer window, at least it may be 
shown among the *file properties* (right-click at 
the PDF file icon).

I still don't know whether this is what you intend.

Looking at real-life books again, copyright marks
seem to be printed on the *back page of the title 
page* usually.  So \textcopyright might help *below* 
\maketitle.  This may be most recommendable.

There is a problem *not* related to TeX:
The copyright owner in the first instance is the 
*author*.  The author more usually transfers the 
copyright to the publisher.  I doubt that *you* 
get the copyright when you just are the copy 
typist of

    \author{David Niklas}

Rather, your name will be mentioned "last, not least" 
at the end of the author's preface, nowhere else in 
the book (and without a copyright mark), sorry.

If you are not the author's copy typist, but work 
for the publisher, please ask at that company.  
Otherwise you should know that as the author's typist, 
(usually) it is *not your job* to create the pages 
around the title page which do not display (even) 
Roman page numbers.  By

    \documentclass[11pt,oneside,a4paper]{book}

you only get a rough idea of how the book could look 
like, just while preparing the manuscript before it is 
actually submitted to the publisher.  (The final book 
probably won't be "oneside" and "a4paper".)  There 
also are book classes especially for certain disciplines 
of science, such as amsbook.cls, whose output resembles 
the look provided by the publisher better.  
Some publishers offer the classes by which they 
typeset their books in the web or even on CTAN.  
Anyway, publishers have their own ideas and means 
for creating the title pages.

In the latter respect, you just shouldn't deal 
with what you are asking.

(I have thought of "well-reputed" publishers here, 
 not of "cheap" ones or "self-publishing".)
     
\thanks,

    Uwe.


P.S.:  I heard a local Gentoo user group fell apart,
maybe the about 3 members forked to about 7 Gentoo 
derivates.


       "You can observe a lot by watching." 
                                  -- Yogi Berra