Re: How to set paper size?

[Mark Summerfield]

On 2008-09-01, Robert Riebisch wrote:
> Hi!
>
> AFAIK Lout uses paper size "US letter" as default. How do I change paper
> size to A4 for a simple single page document? I've already read
> doc/user.pdf, but I'm more confused than before. I wish @Document would
> just allow "@PageType { A4 }".

Hi Robert,

You've just hit one of louts annoyances. There are two group of settings
for things, one group that you can set easily, e.g.

    @Document
        @InitialFont{...}
    //

and the other group that you can't. For this second group you have to
copy the relevant file (e.g., include/doc) to the directory where your
document is and do

    @Include{doc}
 
instead of @SysInclude{doc}, and make any changes you need (such as
setting the page size) in the local copy of doc.

Personally, I always change the name of the copy, e.g., to doc.lout, so
for me the include line is @Include{doc.lout}.

This is annoying because (1) for small documents you often end up
needing two files, and (2) if you upgrade lout you may find changes that
(of course) aren't in your local copy and so you may have to merge them
(as I've had to do more than once and it was a nightmare, the first time
anyway).

Lout's default page size is A4, but if you didn't build lout yourself
the package you got may use a different default. You can still make A4
your default page size. This is explained in the makefile (item 19), but
in case you haven't got it just use a plain text editor to edit the file
lib/include/dsf (wherever lout is installed) and change line 65 to:
    named @PageType{ A4 @OrIfPlain Other}

-- 
Mark Summerfield, Qtrac Ltd, www.qtrac.eu
    C++, Python, Qt, PyQt - training and consultancy
        "Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt" - ISBN 0132354187