retitle 225833 No working default driver (papersize specials) in geometry.sty
thanks
Ross Boylan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The geometry package indicates it has 4 driver options, which are
> mutually exclusive. pdftex and vtex are selected automatically when
> you use the appropriate program.
In other words, they are superfluous.
> dvipdfm is described as "works like
> dvips except landscape correction." And dvips is the remaining one.
>
> So it sounds as if the only problem area might be dvipdfm whenever the
> landscape correction (whatever that is)
This means that with dvips, there's going to be a
\special{! /landplus90 true store}
in the dvi file. This leads to "Unrecognized special ignored" when
processing a file with [dvips,landscape] with dvipdfm, but the resulting
PDF file is fine: A5 landscape. No problem here with specifiying dvips
as the default.
> My understanding
> is that, if one has source, pdf(la)tex is superior anyway.
Hm, not generally: There are still packages like pstricks that don't
work in PDF mode, or only with some workarounds.
> I'm also
> not sure if the pdftex setting is relevant on Debian, since it's
> actually using etex underneath.
That's a different thing - what geometry does is detect pdftex in PDF
mode vs. anything in DVI mode. The underlying engine (in etch and sid)
is pdftex (including e-TeX extensions), not Knuthian tex or etex.
> I've noticed one other nook: I have an xdvi that I started before I
> ran texconfig-sys to set the default to letter. In xdvi's print
> dialogue I keep seeing dvips options: -t a4, even with dvi files
> produced since I switched to letter. I guess this is just a corollary
> of \usepackage{geometry} being inadequate, and the fact that the
> program doesn't re-read the defaults once it is started.
Nearly: I think this is *only* due to the fact that xdvi doesn't
re-read the defaults, it just uses the settings you used last time. At
least in the default configuration on my teTeX system. More often than
not, when you've got reason to complain about xdvi, there's already a
switch to change its behavior. Hm, from the manpage, there doesn't seem
to be one, at least not in the version in teTeX-3.0.
> Anyway, the BOTTOM LINE with the current Debian setup seems to be that
> if you want to specify page size explicitly, and have that respected
> by all post-processing tools, you need to use
> \usepackage[dvips,xxxx]{geometry}, where xxx is the papersize.
> Apparently xxx can either be "paper=letterpaper" or just
> "letterpaper".
Yes, that's correct (and that "paper=" is optional is usual, documented
keyval behavior). And it's also suboptimal IMHO.
> And if you want to set defaults for all the tools when you don't have
> an explicit papersize, use texconfig-sys paper xxxx.
For a proper definition of "all tools", this is right: dvips, dvipdfm,
pdftex and xdvi. Anything else, like latex or other dvi-to-whatever
drivers probably ignores it.
> In this case xxx
> can only take the values "a4" or "letter" NOT any other sizes and NOT
> a4paper or letterpaper.
>
> Probably if you have a paper size other than a4 or letter you are just
> out of luck with some of the tools.
Yes, but this limitation is already being addressed, see somewhere in
the bowels of #402994.
Regards, Frank
--
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
