paper size defaults (was Re: [texhax] Hello - I have a problem)

[William F. Adams]

On Thursday, August 19, 2004, at 07:31  PM, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

> It doesn't have anything to do where TeX was developed.  If Knuth
> would develop TeX today, it certainly would default to ISO standards.

While mostly I agree w/ Reinhard's informative post, I don't think this 
would be likely to be the case, simply because it's not that common / 
easy to get anything other than letter, legal and tabloid paper here in 
the US.

I'll bet long odds and family heirlooms that DEK is proofing the next 
vol. (4?) of TAoCP on letter-sized paper.

Certainly it would have a better / more flexible scheme for selecting 
paper, and hopefully wouldn't have the hard-wired 1in. v/h offset.

I for one think it's wonderful that so many apps (esp. printer drivers) 
are so nice about letting one pick paper sizes from such a wide variety 
(and I wish there was a larger variety / more standards --- I still 
think we should get a printer to cut 9" x 12" stock for printing stuff 
with bleeds and that the savings on shipping (over tabloid) would make 
up for the expense quite quickly).

William
(who will consider switching to A4 when someone replaces his 
old-fashioned wooden letter-sized filing cabinet ;)

-- 
William Adams, publishing specialist
voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
www.atlis.com