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From: Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk (Damian Cugley)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Help with TeX page formatting (modified repost).
Message-ID: <DAMIAN.CUGLEY.91Apr12120313@pierrot.prg.ox.ac.uk>
Date: 12 Apr 91 11:03:13 GMT
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In-reply-to: randy@rls.UUCP's message of 2 Apr 91 21:07:02 GMT


		  HOW TO SET THE MARGINS in plain TeX.
			 (One-sided printing.)

    \newdimen\marge \marge=20mm		% size of margins
    \hsize=210mm \vsize=297mm 		% A4 paper (210x297)
    \advance\hsize-2\marge		% subtract space for margins
    \advance\vsize-2.5\marge		% bot margin is 50% larger
    \hoffset=\marge \advance\hoffset-1in
    \voffset=\marge \advance\voffset-1in

This assumes:

 \\ Plain TeX, not LaTeX: the principles are the same but every command
    and dimen name is different (thank you, Mr La);

 \\ \hoffset isn't set in \output (and for 2-sided printing you need to
    set \hoffset for each page individually);

 \\ you don't mind editing that code to make the paper a different size.

Finally, \topskip has a very different function and oughtn't to be used
in an attempt to alter margins.

Hope this helps

Damian