TeX Live and MacTeX ⇒ a4paper option in \documentclass doesn't work

[gioacchele]

Hi all,
this is my first post in this forum. I've searched this and other forums to solve this problem, but i could not find anything.
I'm using texlive on fedora 10, installed from the repositories.
I can't get latex to use the a4 paper size, neither with \documentclass, nor with the geometry.sty package.

I don't get any error messages from the compiler. Here's the output of the log file.

Any ideas?

Code: Select all

This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6) (format=latex 2009.3.26)  27 MAR 2009 11:50
entering extended mode
 %&-line parsing enabled.
**"/home/amir/Desktop/new file.tex"
(/home/amir/Desktop/new file.tex
LaTeX2e <2005/12/01>
Babel <v3.8h> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh
yphenation, arabic, basque, bulgarian, coptic, welsh, czech, slovak, german, ng
erman, danish, esperanto, spanish, catalan, galician, estonian, farsi, finnish,
 french, greek, monogreek, ancientgreek, croatian, hungarian, interlingua, ibyc
us, indonesian, icelandic, italian, latin, mongolian, dutch, norsk, polish, por
tuguese, pinyin, romanian, russian, slovenian, uppersorbian, serbian, swedish, 
turkish, ukenglish, ukrainian, loaded.
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/report.cls
Document Class: report 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/size12.clo
File: size12.clo 2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX file (size option)
)
\c@part=\count79
\c@chapter=\count80
\c@section=\count81
\c@subsection=\count82
\c@subsubsection=\count83
\c@paragraph=\count84
\c@subparagraph=\count85
\c@figure=\count86
\c@table=\count87
\abovecaptionskip=\skip41
\belowcaptionskip=\skip42
\bibindent=\dimen102
)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/inputenc.sty
Package: inputenc 2006/05/05 v1.1b Input encoding file
\inpenc@prehook=\toks14
\inpenc@posthook=\toks15

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/utf8.def
File: utf8.def 2006/03/30 v1.1i UTF-8 support for inputenc
Now handling font encoding OML ...
... no UTF-8 mapping file for font encoding OML
Now handling font encoding T1 ...
... processing UTF-8 mapping file for font encodingT1

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/t1enc.dfu
File: t1enc.dfu 2006/03/30 v1.1i UTF-8 support for inputenc
   defining Unicode char U+00A1 (decimal 161)
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   defining Unicode char U+00AB (decimal 171)
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   defining Unicode char U+2423 (decimal 9251)
)
Now handling font encoding OT1 ...
... processing UTF-8 mapping file for font encodingOT1

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/ot1enc.dfu
File: ot1enc.dfu 2006/03/30 v1.1i UTF-8 support for inputenc
   defining Unicode char U+00A1 (decimal 161)
   defining Unicode char U+00A3 (decimal 163)
   defining Unicode char U+00B8 (decimal 184)
   defining Unicode char U+00BF (decimal 191)
   defining Unicode char U+00C5 (decimal 197)
   defining Unicode char U+00C6 (decimal 198)
   defining Unicode char U+00D8 (decimal 216)
   defining Unicode char U+00DF (decimal 223)
   defining Unicode char U+00E6 (decimal 230)
   defining Unicode char U+00EC (decimal 236)
   defining Unicode char U+00ED (decimal 237)
   defining Unicode char U+00EE (decimal 238)
   defining Unicode char U+00EF (decimal 239)
   defining Unicode char U+00F8 (decimal 248)
   defining Unicode char U+0131 (decimal 305)
   defining Unicode char U+0141 (decimal 321)
   defining Unicode char U+0142 (decimal 322)
   defining Unicode char U+0152 (decimal 338)
   defining Unicode char U+0153 (decimal 339)
   defining Unicode char U+2013 (decimal 8211)
   defining Unicode char U+2014 (decimal 8212)
   defining Unicode char U+2018 (decimal 8216)
   defining Unicode char U+2019 (decimal 8217)
   defining Unicode char U+201C (decimal 8220)
   defining Unicode char U+201D (decimal 8221)
)
Now handling font encoding OMS ...
... processing UTF-8 mapping file for font encodingOMS

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/omsenc.dfu
File: omsenc.dfu 2006/03/30 v1.1i UTF-8 support for inputenc
   defining Unicode char U+00A7 (decimal 167)
   defining Unicode char U+00B6 (decimal 182)
   defining Unicode char U+00B7 (decimal 183)
   defining Unicode char U+2020 (decimal 8224)
   defining Unicode char U+2021 (decimal 8225)
   defining Unicode char U+2022 (decimal 8226)
)
Now handling font encoding OMX ...
... no UTF-8 mapping file for font encoding OMX
Now handling font encoding U ...
... no UTF-8 mapping file for font encoding U
   defining Unicode char U+00A9 (decimal 169)
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   defining Unicode char U+2026 (decimal 8230)
   defining Unicode char U+2122 (decimal 8482)
   defining Unicode char U+2423 (decimal 9251)
))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/babel/babel.sty
Package: babel 2005/11/23 v3.8h The Babel package

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/babel/italian.ldf
Language: italian 2005/11/17 v1.2r Italian support from the babel system

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/babel/babel.def
File: babel.def 2005/11/23 v3.8h Babel common definitions
\babel@savecnt=\count88
\U@D=\dimen103
)
Package babel Info: Making " an active character on input line 91.
Now handling font encoding LGR ...
... no UTF-8 mapping file for font encoding LGR
)) (./new file.aux)
\openout1 = `"new file.aux"'.

LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for OML/cmm/m/it on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for T1/cmr/m/n on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for OT1/cmr/m/n on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for OMS/cmsy/m/n on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for OMX/cmex/m/n on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for U/cmr/m/n on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Checking defaults for LGR/cmr/m/n on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    Try loading font information for LGR+cmr on input line 5.

(/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/babel/lgrcmr.fd
File: lgrcmr.fd 2001/01/30 v2.2e Greek Computer Modern
)
LaTeX Font Info:    ... okay on input line 5.
LaTeX Font Info:    External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font)              <14.4> on input line 10.
LaTeX Font Info:    External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font)              <7> on input line 10.
 [1

] (./new file.toc
LaTeX Font Info:    External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font)              <12> on input line 2.
LaTeX Font Info:    External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font)              <8> on input line 2.
LaTeX Font Info:    External font `cmex10' loaded for size
(Font)              <6> on input line 2.
)
\tf@toc=\write3
\openout3 = `"new file.toc"'.

 [1

]
(./new file.aux) ) 
Here is how much of TeX's memory you used:
 849 strings out of 256217
 9712 string characters out of 1917095
 62286 words of memory out of 1500000
 4176 multiletter control sequences out of 10000+200000
 8800 words of font info for 31 fonts, out of 1200000 for 2000
 645 hyphenation exceptions out of 8191
 24i,6n,24p,174b,179s stack positions out of 5000i,500n,6000p,200000b,15000s

Output written on "new file.dvi" (2 pages, 1648 bytes).

[Keta]

Could you provide us with a minimal working example? It's hard to know what happens without having the source of the problem.

[gioacchele]

The problem occurs with every document.
For example, with this one:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[italian]{babel}

\begin{document}
\title{prova}
\author{Amir}
\date{\today}

\maketitle
\tableofcontents

\section{Capitolo di prova}
blablabla
\section{Sezione}
bla
\section{Altro capitolo di prova}
blabka

\end{document}

[josephwright]

How do you determine your document size? What is your workflow: do you use pdflatex to make a PDF directly or do you go via a DVI?

[gioacchele]

Hi Joseph,

thanks, pdflatex works properly!

I was using latex to make the dvi file, and dvipdf to make dvi. The output of the pdf is always US letter. I can't check the dvi, as evince can't open dvi files, prompting this error:

Unable to open document
File type TeX DVI document (application/x-dvi) is not supported

So i'll use pdflatex now, but i'm curious to know why i can't produce a4 documents with the other workflow.

[phi]

I can't check the dvi, as evince can't open dvi files, prompting this error:

That is quite weird because evince does support DVI files.

So i'll use pdflatex now, but i'm curious to know why i can't produce a4 documents with the other workflow.

You can, but you have to specify the paper size explicitly as there is no notion of "paper size" in the DVI format:

Code: Select all

latex foo.tex
dvips -t a4 foo.dvi
ps2pdf foo.ps

TeX Live (at least version 2008) allows to change the default paper size. But if you want to produce PDFs and don't need PostScript-specific features like PSTricks, pdflatex is usually the way to go.