[texhax] Questions about page layout and dimension

[Jim Diamond]

On Wed, Mar  2, 2011 at 08:34 (+0800), Yue Wu wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 11:10:16AM -0400, Jim Diamond wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar  1, 2011 at 10:30 (+0800), Yue Wu wrote:

>>> Hi, list,

>>> I'm learning plain TeX, a few questions I meet is:

>>> 1.
>>> I find that \special{landscape} can produce .pdf in landscape page
>>> layout after going the routine TeX -> dvips -> ps2pdf, it's fine enough
>>> although the .dvi still isn't in landscape, any simple way, in plain
>>> TeX's way?

>> Assuming you are using 8.5 x 11 paper (A4 paper or other sizes are
>> left as an exercise to the diligent student :-):

>> \special{papersize=11in,8.5in}%
>> \special{! /landplus90 true store}% Avoid seascape !  (PS only?)

>> I expect someone else will tell you that .dvi files don't really know
>> anything about page sizes.

> Thanks, it work, but I find the following pages will become landscape
> too, how to let it work for just current page?

Sorry, I didn't realize that you wanted to switch back and forth.

When you want to switch back to portrait, aside from changing tex's
\hsize and \vsize, you should also do
\special{papersize=8.5in,11in}%

My quick test with dvips produced results you might not like; with
page 1 in landscape and page 2 in portrait the whole PS file is
landscape, as is the whole PDF file created with ps2pdf.


I'm guessing you will need someone who knows more about the dvi format
and the appropriate \special{}s than me to do what you want.

Cheers.
				Jim