[OS X TeX] Re: Setting different margins for different pages

[John B. Thoo]

On Mar 17, 2011, at 12:00 PM, in MacOSX-TeX Digest, Vol 41, Issue 12 
Nestor Aguilera wrote:

> On 16 Mar 2011, at 11:42, Alan Munn wrote:
> 
>> On Mar 16, 2011, at 9:58 AM, John B. Thoo wrote:
>> 
>> Hi John
>> 
>>> Hi, everyone.  I'm sorry if this is a FAQ, but I had a hard time trying to find an answer in comp.text.tex.
>>> 
>>> Using \documentclass{letter}, I'd like to set the margins so that the first page is something like
>>> 
>>> \setlength\topmargin{-0.5cm}
>>> \setlength\oddsidemargin{90pt}
>>> 
>>> to accomodate my department's letterhead paper, but then the succeeding pages simply have a 1-inch margin all around.  How can I set that in the preamble?
>> 
>> The simple answer is that you can't.  However, using the geometry package, you can change the margins with \newgeometry.  This forces a pagebreak.  There's no way to do it automatically.
>> 
>> So \usepackage[lmargin=90pt,tmargin=?, rmargin=1in, bmargin=1in]{geometry}
>> 
>> then
>> 
>> \newgeometry{lmargin=1in, tmargin=1in}
>> 
>> at an appropriate break.
> 
> Before using another package, perhaps you could try inserting \vspace*{1in} or something similar at the beginning (assuming the first page will have the letterhead already printed) to leave space for it.

Hi, Nestor.  The letterhead, unfortunately, isn't printed across the top, but is down the left side of the page; thus, the hack \setlength\oddsidemargin{90pt}.  Is there a better way?  Cheers.

---John.

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"It is worth thinking deeply about simple things."
---Jesus De Loera, UC Davis mathematics, 12 Jan 2011