[XeTeX] [tex-live] XeTeX/TeX Live : Setting the default language

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Fri, 4 Nov 2011, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
> As far as paper size is concerned, as mentioned by Matthew Skala, this
> information belongs into each document too.  However, there are some
> situations where default settings can be useful though, for instance
> if you exchange TeX source files with Americans.  However, this
> requires a well designed page layout which yields good results on
> both, A4 and letter paper.

Paper size is special because if you compile your document for the wrong
paper size and send it to a printer, at many sites that will cause the
printer to stall and demand operator attention while other documents pile
up in the queue.  Incorrect hyphenation doesn't have that effect.  In a
multiuser environment it's a given that people *will* leave things on the
defaults, whatever those may be; and you can't have queue stalls many
times every day just to preserve the purity of the "metadata in every
document" model.  Administrators will implement a site-local default for
paper size whether they should or not.  Getting the right set of
hyphenation patterns can be more safely left to the users.
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                 People before principles.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/