[Tugindia] two side document

[David Kastrup]

Dileep Padinjarae Vengasseri <dileep_pv at yahoo.com> writes:

> When I give the option `twoside' in an article or
> report (\documentclass[twoside, openright]{article}).I
> find that odd pages have higher right margins and even
> pages have higer left margins. However, in general, is
> it not that we will be requiring it the other way?
> Since binding of the report takes away some space, one
> would prefer to have higer right margins for even
> numbered pages (left page) and higher left margins for
> the odd pages (right page). I am curious to know why 
> isthe default style the other way (is it for margin
> notes?).

No.  The problem is that the binding is something that depends on the
printing process, and so binding corrections are not usefully part of
the document (you can do them, for example, using pstops) but rather
of the printing process.  The PostScript file, when viewed with a
viewer, should reflect the _visible_ parts of the page, not the stuff
that disappears in bindings.

The KOMA-Script classes _do_ have a separate binding correction
parameter you can set.

To come back to your question: if you have your book lying open, the
overall appearance is left outer border, left text, left inner border,
right inner border, right text, right outer border.  Document
aesthetics make it desirable that the blank areas are of similar
size.  But that means that the visible parts of the inner borders
should be about half that of the outer borders, because the inner
borders combine to one larger blank area.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
UKTUG FAQ: <URL:http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html>