latex margin issues --- still

[marc]

jjramsey said...
> 
> I can confirm that teTeX on Ubuntu is buggy with regard to paper size. I
> just installed it today. Running "sudo texconfig paper letter" doesn't
> work. Changing the content of /etc/papersize from a4 to letter doesn't
> work. And my LaTeX file just isn't that complicated, a regular LaTeX
> article with nothing in the preamble but
> "\providecommand{\boldsymbol}[1]{\mbox{\boldmath $#1$}}".

I only ever use [a4paper], but I just changed it to [letterpaper] on 
Ubuntu and it produced the expected output.

I've just dug out the rest of this thread from the archives and in the 
discussion folk have asked you to provide the preamble of a problem doc. 
There's a reason for this, so please supply it.

As far as I'm aware, LaTeX doesn't use /etc/papersize when compiling a 
document - it would be a pain if it did. The standard - and as far as I 
know, the only way - to determine paper size is via the papersize option 
of the \documentclass

In other words, something like:

\documentclass[a4paper]{memoir}
\begin{document}
This produces a4 output
\end{document}

and 

\documentclass[letterpaper]{memoir}
\begin{document}
This produces letter-sized output
\end{document}

Try these and see what happens.

-- 
Best,
Marc