Document 494

The LaTeX geometry package

Version: 3.x, 4.x, 5.x - Scientific WorkPlace & Scientific Word

The geometry package provides a simple way to customize the page layout of your document. If the shell you're using provides a largely adequate layout, you may be able to use the geometry package to customize the shell so that it meets all your typesetting requirements. In particular, the easiest way to change the typeset margins for a document is to add the geometry package and then include in the document preamble a command to change the margins.

With the Options and Packages command on the Typeset menu, you can set options for the geometry package. The options affect page orientation, elimination of the space for headers and/or footers, paper size, print side, margins, margin notes, headers and footers, and magnification. You can make additional specifications with TeX commands in the preamble of your document.

The package uses automatic completion of layout dimensions; if you don't specify all dimensions, the package supplies the remainder automatically. The geometry package also uses auto-centering and auto-balancing mechanisms so that you can use simple, minimal descriptions to define the page layout you want. For example, you can set the all margins to 3 centimeters without any space for headers or footers using this command in the preamble of your document:

\usepackage[margin=3cm,noheadfoot]{geometry}

The package uses the "key val" (key = value) interface. As seen in the above example, command arguments consist of key val options, separated by commas. Options are usually order-dependent. You can specify commands in multiple lines.

The package documentation contains additional instructions and a good illustration of LaTeX page layout concepts. The package is installed in the TCITeX/TeX/LaTeX/contrib/geometry directory.

See also

• Fitting more text on a typeset page.

Last revised 02/08/06

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