In article <20171027104221.gd9...@www.stare.cz> Jan Stary <h...@stare.cz> wrote:
> On Oct 27 12:12:21, w...@roquesor.com wrote:
> > In article <20171026193138.ga41...@www.stare.cz> Jan Stary <h...@stare.cz>
> > wrote:
> > > > > > In the ps file generated by mandoc you should have this line:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > %%DocumentMedia: Default 595 841 0 () ()
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Where 595 841 correspond to A4. If you set output paper to "letter"
> > > > > > that line will say:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > %%DocumentMedia: Default 612 790 0 () ()
> > >
> > > Yes. It seems that these are just _comments_ to the PS interpreter
> > > and the "Default" is just an arbitrary given name, right?
> > > (Sorry, I don't know the language.) So GV just shows that,
> > > but it does not _determine_ the actual media size, right?
> > > Looking at term_ps.c, mandoc writes "Default ... " for every paper size.
> > >
> >
> > First of all, I'm just a user like you trying to figure out how things
> > work. So, don't expect from me some deep analysis, for that Ingo is the
> > right person.
> >
> > I answered you - based in what I intuitively observed - that mandoc
> > honors the paper size, and explained you why I think so.
> >
> > I know about postcript language as much as you, as well as what gv takes
> > in care to print the document on the screen, so first I grep in the
> > ps file for 'a4|letter' strings and got nothing, then searching on the
> > Internet I found the dots equivalence and repeated the search this time
> > using '595 841|612 790'. I did the same with documents generated by GNU
> > roff. I found the "comment" I mentioned in the other message, so
> > I opened the ps file with vi(1), changed those numbers, and then
> > I opened the modified file with gv. That's how I found out gv takes in
> > care that "comment" to figure out physical page dimensions.
>
> Apparently, it does not: the dimensions are given explicitly in e.g.
> "%%DocumentMedia: Default 595 841 0 () ()", and the "Default"
> could just as well be "Foobar", as Ingo explained.
>
That's the "comment" we're talking about since the beginning of the
thread, aren't we? As I told you what I modified to do the test was the
numbers.
> > Finally, "default" means "default". :-) Perhaps (guessing again), since
> > page size use is related to region settings, who designed postscript
> > (hence gv) thought convenient to honor some wide system setting (based
> > on locale?).
>
> With output paper set to A3, A4, A5 in man.conf, "man -Tps rm > rm.ps"
> will produce a PostScript file with the correct dimensions,
> calling all the formats "Default". A printer (such us my Minolta)
> will print them all on A4, although it does have A3 and A5 paper too.
> Changing the "%%DocumentMedia: Default ..." line manualy to "A3" or "A5"
> does not change that.
>
> I am not saying mandoc should write A3 or A4 or A5 instead of Default
> (it's the actual dimensions that matter), but perhaps such a DSC comment
> might help some appications. Apparently not GV, which just repeats the name,
> and not my Minolta, which prints on A4 anyway.
You know, too much people developing software without caring about what
others did before. Who developed your Minolta software is not an
exception. ;-)
>
> Jan
>
>
Walter
