Message-Id: <199402161353.AA27858@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX2e Betatest <LATEX-2E@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Wed, 16 Feb 1994 11:52:57 LCL
From: Mike Piff <M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX2e Betatest <LATEX-2E@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-2E <LATEX-2E@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Query about \textheight computation
Status: R

From:          "Johannes L. Braams" <J.L.Braams@RESEARCH.PTT.NL>
%>
%>    On Tuesday, February 15 Martyn.Johnson@cl.cam.ac.uk commented on
%>    the way \textheight and \topmargin are computed in the class
%>    files.
%>
%>    Let me say this about this subject: the layout parameters are not
%>    finalised yet, we still have plans to change some of them. The
%>    value of 1.5 inch is a left over from the time when I was working
%>    on it and needed a quick solution to get something halfway decent.
%>    That may most certainly be changed.
%>
%>    We still want to compute the textheight such that a whole number
%>    of baselineskips fits in the the textheight area. We also want to
%>    compute those values to support several papersizes. We know that
%>    the designs reached this way are not superb document design,  but
%>    that can't be acheived anyway when doing something like this. You
%>    need a specialized class for that.
%>
%>    As to the value of the topmargin, running the layout package (not
%>    yet available for LaTeX2e, I'm currentluy working on it) with
%>    class article and 12pt option tells me \topmargin is 17pt.
%>
%>    If you have any suggestions to do a better computation I'd welcome
%>    to see them.
%>

What are the assumptions? Are you assuming an inch margin round the text
area, and the header and footer within that inch for single sided paper?
What assumptions for two sided paper?

(Very few fine books are actually printed on A4-size paper, are they? But
many people print all sorts of things on A4 without any consideration of
aesthetics, but more a need to get as much as possible on the page:-)

Are \headheight and \headsep functions of the pointsize? (Also \footheight
and \footsep/skip.) And what about \topskip?  (I have a feeling that
\headheight at least is fixed at 12pt. Is this right?

Also, is using ems for vertical dimensions acceptable?

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Dr M J Piff, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of %%
%% Sheffield, UK.                    e-mail: M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk %%
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