Re: [help-gv] default media size

[Miklos Somogyi]

Steve,

This is a a problem that should be non-existent but, unfortunately,  
it is everywhere.
Once Adobe introduced the

          <</PageSize [ix iy]>> setpagedevice

construct that should have solved the question once and for all (ix,  
iy are the paper size
in default PS units).

Some ps processing applications don't issue it (e.g. grops, groff's  
ps processor), some ps viewing
applications (direct or through pdf) obey it, some do their own  
guesswork.
During system setup time there could be mixups with printer drivers  
or ppd files ...

Once I thought that I fixed my groff problems by modifying the  
prologue that grops prepends
to the code generated by groff. It worked like charm with Preview  
under Panther.
Then I upgraded to Tiger. Now Preview puts-up a huge window that  
covers nearly
the whole screen, despite PageSize properly declared. I grew tired of  
this and gave up.

While still hopeful I produced a paper on `PostScript in groff' at  
the groff forum, perhaps
it would be of interest to you:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2006-07/msg00105.html

Good luck

Miklos




On 17/06/2007, at 3:40 AM, Steve Kleene wrote:

> My PostScript files made with groff have no information about media  
> size
> (DocumentMedia or setpagedevice).  This is true even if I force "-p  
> letter"
> on grops.  I have verified that groff opens /etc/papersize (which says
> "letter") but don't see any media size info in the PostScript output.
>
> When I view these PS files with gv, it displays them as A4, but I  
> would
> prefer letter.  I'm guessing gv picks some default media size,  
> which seems to
> be A4.  Is there a way for me to change that default gv uses to  
> letter?
>
> I have found two ways so far to get a letter display:
>
>   1. Call "gv -media=LETTER".  I'd rather have letter just be the  
> default.
>
>   2. Change the line in /etc/X11/app-defaults/GV from
>        GV.pageMedia:           automatic
>        to
>        GV.pageMedia:           letter
>      I'm wondering, though, if that wouldn't force letter even on a  
> document
>      that declares itself to be something else (e.g. A4).
>
> On an older installation I have, gv just brings up a letter display by
> default as far as I can tell.
>
> I'm using these packages from the Debian Etch repository:
>
>   groff 1.18.1.1-12
>   gv 3.6.2-3
>   gs-gpl 8.54.dfsg.1-5
>
> These lines may also be relevant:
>
>   In /usr/share/groff/1.18.1/font/devps/DESC
>     papersize /etc/papersize a4
>   In /etc/papersize
>     letter
>
> Thanks.