So, I generally like letting LaTeX make most of my typesetting decisions for me— it generally knows what is typographically "good" better than I do.
One area I just haven't been able to turn control over to LaTeX for is margin size. As has been noted before, the default margins are fairly large in LaTeX. I understand that this is so in order to allow for a reasonable number of characters per line (I've seen 60-80 characters frequently quoted as the target range).
Currently, I am just setting exact margins with geometry (e.g., with \usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
in the preamble, because 60 characters is just too strange looking for me. Lines of around 80 characters I'm fine with, though.
Is there any way to tell LaTeX to set the margins larger without having to fix an absolute length (like 1 inch above)? Say by telling LaTeX to aim more for the 80 character-per-line limit?
Best Answer
The
rmpage
package has text width options of the formwider
,widest
,narrower
, with variations liketouchwider
,t@ouchnarrower
. It also has text height options such aslong
andshorter
.which reports
in the
.log
file. Awidish
option will not be regard as too wide for comfy reading.The package is a predecessor to the
geometry
package, but is often a useful alternative, with the added bonus of a fun and informative manual.