[Tex/LaTex] Problem with margins using amsart and geometry packages

amsartdouble-sidedgeometrymargins

I do not want different margins on even and odd sides, I just want the usual page setup from the amsart package. However, consider:

\documentclass{amsart}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}

compiling this with pdflatex gives different margins on odd and even sides. I think the problem is the combination of the amsart and geometry packages. If I do not use the geometry package it works fine. If I use \documentclass{article} it also works fine.

Best Answer

If you use the package layout you get a picture of the dimensions used by the amsart for laying out the page. The following document reproduces that layout using the geometry package:

\documentclass{amsart}    

\usepackage[marginratio=1:1,height=584pt,width=360pt,tmargin=117pt]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{layout}

\begin{document}
\layout
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}

In particular, the height and width specifications correspond to the \textheight and \textwidth produced by amsart. The marginratio makes the marigns even, and tmargin moves the text down appropriately.

The value of tmargin was obtained as follows. layout reports for amsart that \topmargin=22pt. To convert this to tmargin I added 1in = 72pt plus headheight=14pt to the 22pt. However, the resulting layout reported a \topmargin of 21pt, so I bumped the result up by 1pt, to get the required value. The geometry documentation says

tmargin has nothing to do with \topmargin

but the package only provides tmargin to set the corresponding space.

All the above is assuming US latter paper. The amsart class sets:

\headheight=8pt \headsep=14pt
\footskip=12pt
\textheight=50.5pc \topskip=10pt
\textwidth=30pc
\columnsep=10pt \columnseprule=0pt
\marginparwidth=90pt
\marginparsep=11pt
\marginparpush=5pt

and has 

\DeclareOption{a4paper}{\paperheight 297mm\paperwidth 210mm
  \textheight 54.5pc }
\DeclareOption{letterpaper}{\paperheight 11in\paperwidth 8.5in }

So if you specify a4paper option then a different \textheight is used. Again the layout package will report it for you.

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