Re: LC_PAPER and default paper size

[David Kastrup]

Pavel Roskin <address@hidden> writes:

> Quoting David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
>
>> Pavel Roskin <address@hidden> writes:
>
>>> 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.
>
> Oh well, it looks like LC_PAPER is not getting as much respect from
> typesetting software as I thought.  I guess I'll have to readjust my
> taste and write a wrapper around Lilypond.

What is wrong with specifying the paper size you want in the \paper
block?

More often than not, the global staff size and manual tweaks are set to
achieve a certain page layout.  If LilyPond changed its behavior on
different computers, stuff would stop working without the user having a
clue that this was not intended output.

-- 
David Kastrup