Footskip not working in latex

footnotesheader-footer

I am using template from following site.
https://journal.hep.com.cn/fcs/EN/column/column11258.shtml

Rest of the padding and spacing is fine and if I change any of the following values, I can see the changes in document except the

\setlength{\footskip}{11mm}.

It is not changing anything. The document does not have bottom padding as it can be seen in the image below:

Bottom padding not working

\setlength{\paperwidth}{210truemm}
\setlength{\paperheight}{277truemm}
\setlength{\textwidth}{176truemm}
\setlength{\textheight}{235truemm}
\setlength{\footskip}{11mm}
\setlength{\headsep}{6mm}
\setlength{\headheight}{6mm}
\setlength{\hoffset}{-9mm}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{3mm}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{3mm}

Best Answer

\footskip is the distance from the bottom of the text block to the baseline of the footer. The vertical dimensions of the page are going to be:

  • 25.4mm¹
  • \voffset² (0mm)
  • \topmargin(depends on document class which you don't identify but it's 16pt≈5.6mm in article at 10pt)³
  • \headheight (6mm)
  • \headsep (6mm)
  • \textheight (235mm)⁴
  • \footskip (11mm)

Adding these up, we get 278mm to the bottom of the text block. To increase the bottom margin, the correct approach will be to reduce \textheight.⁵

  1. A historical artifact of plain.tex which assumed 1 inch margins and declared TeX's origin to be 1in down from the top of the page and one inch from the left side.
  2. Normally LaTeX does not use \hoffset or \voffset but instead relies on its own parameters,
  3. You can have LaTeX show you value for any parameter by putting, e.g., \typeout{\the\topmargin} into your document. There's also a command \showthe which can be called with \showthe\topmargin but it then stops LaTeX as if there's an error which may or may not be desirable.
  4. There's no need to use truemm in place of mm. The true prefix is another plain.tex relic based around the magnification feature which LaTeX disables.
  5. It's worth noting that historically LaTeX had no real conception of paper size which is why there's a top margin but not a bottom margin and a left margin but not a right margin.
Related Question