Re: landscape printing and viewing

[David Wright]

On Mon 10 Sep 2018 at 00:55:36 (+0200), Simon Albrecht wrote:
> On 09.09.2018 23:13, David Kastrup wrote:
> > Kieren MacMillan<address@hidden>  writes:
> > > Hi Martin,
> > > > \paper {
> > > >   #(set-paper-size "a4" 'landscape)
> > > > }
> > > If I’m not mistaken, the correct incantation is
> > > 
> > > \paper {
> > >   #(set-paper-size "a4landscape")
> > > }
> > That sets_only_  the papersize, not the orientation.  For the screen it
> > might be what you want.  Whether your printer driver is smart enough to
> > figure out what you want is a different question then.
> 
> It has to be, doesn’t it?

I don't see why, unless your PDF viewer is unable to rotate pages.

> #(set-paper-size "a4landscape" 'landscape)
> doesn’t help, because then it’s displayed wrong by both evince and
> PyQtPdfViewer (I don’t know its exact name, the one in Frescobaldi…).

I avoid ever writing that because it gives the impression that it's
going to produce a4landscape paper output, which of course it doesn't.
NR §4.1.2 has an odd way of saying this: "When the paper size ends
with an explicit ‘landscape’ or ‘portrait’, the presence of a
'landscape symbol only affects print orientation, not the paper
dimensions used for layout." AIUI the effect of the 'landscape symbol
is unchanged: the pages¹ are rotated and the layout changes to match.

> Can’t test printing right now.

OK, but the results of such a test would not in general be applicable
to others, as we all have different printers, queues, drivers, OSes, etc.
Rotating the print on a fixed-orientation page can be an efficient
strategy depending on the individual's circumstances.

> Although: I get furious every time I feed an A4 page into a normal
> copy machine (at my university) the wrong way and the damn thing isn’t
> able to figure it out, but goes exactly with the orthogonal relation
> and creates a cropped print. This is 2018, man… and that’s still
> happening.

Yes, copiers and printers aren't in the habit of saying, "Are you sure?"

¹ I would have written "print" rather than "pages". In the context,
"Pages" invites confusion with the paper itself.

Cheers,
David.