Re: LC_PAPER and default paper size

[David Kastrup]

Pavel Roskin <address@hidden> writes:

> On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 01:19:48 +0200
> David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Pavel Roskin <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>> > Hello!
>> >
>> > I have noticed that Lilypond 2.16.0 uses A4 paper size even if the
>> > locale is set to en_US.utf8.  I can force the letter output by using
>> >
>> > -dpaper-size=\"letter\"
>> >
>> > but that seems inelegant.  Is there any way to make Lilypond
>> > default to letter pages without adding anything to the command line?
>> >
>> > I used strace and didn't see Lilypond open any file in the home
>> > directory, such as ~/.lilypondrc or something.
>> >
>> > Should not Lilypond respect the LC_PAPER setting from the locale?
>> 
>> I don't think that LilyPond should produce different output on
>> different systems for whatever reason.
>
> Doesn't TeX respect LC_PAPER?

No.  TeX/LaTeX is letterpaper by default.  You have to ask for a4paper
in the LaTeX source (or, in plain TeX, meddle with \hsize, \vsize and
stuff) explicitly to change the layout.  While dvips has a default paper
size setting, that does not concern the dvi file (and consequently the
text layout), but merely the offsets for placing the page content on a
particular printer.

> I can understand that Lilypond should not look at any local settings
> to interpret the input, as the input is Lilypond-specific.  But I
> don't see why Lilypond should ignore local setting for the output.
> Paper is paper, whether it's used for text or music.

If you are asking for LilyPond to behave like TeX/LaTeX, the result is
exactly _not_ catering to LC_PAPER.

-- 
David Kastrup