tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

Salkay · 2018-06-15 02:55:58

I'd like to change my default page size from letter to A4. The wiki says the following.

Paper size
If you would like to set the default page size to something other than A4 (such as "Letter"), run the texconfig command. This command is also capable of changing other useful settings.

However, after running the texconfig command, and following the menus to change the default, I get the following error

/usr/bin/texconfig: line 799: tlmgr: command not found
/usr/bin/texconfig: line 649: tlmgr: command not found
/usr/bin/texconfig: line 1406: tlmgr: command not found
/usr/bin/texconfig: line 1266: tlmgr: command not found

Similarly, tlmgr paper doesn't work, because the tlmgr executable is missing. Should this have been installed? I have texlive-core and texlive-latexextra installed. How can I change default paper size?

Stefan Husmann · 2018-06-17 20:17:25

tlmgr is not included in Arch Linux' texlive-bin-package, so you cannot set the papersize globally.

Salkay · 2018-06-17 21:47:45

Thank you for the reply. Just to clarify, when you say "globally", do you mean "for all users", or is it impossible to set a default paper size for even a single user with Arch Linux?

Stefan Husmann · 2018-06-18 14:36:15

Sorry for being unclear. With "globally" i mean "for all documents" in this case. This is not related to an unix user: If tlmgr is missing, it is missing for all users.

This seems like a bug to me. I think Arch took the policy from Debian: Distros should not ship tlmgr, because it can mess up the package manger. (I do not agree to that Point, but it is the point they make).

But then tlmgr should not be needed for configuration purposes, and obviously it is.

Salkay · 2018-06-18 23:29:37

Stefan Husmann wrote:

Sorry for being unclear.

No worries. Thank you again for your reply.

Stefan Husmann wrote:

I think Arch took the policy from Debian

I had a bit of a search, and in Debian, you can use paperconfig. I tested the following command

paperconfig -p a4

which wrote a4 to /etc/papersize. However, this did not affect paper size when rendering to PDF.

Are there no other options at all? No text files to manually write to? I guess that installing tlmgr manually is not recommended either. Perhaps I should file a bug report for Arch?

Stefan Husmann · 2018-06-19 07:32:47

The PKGBUILD for texlive-bin explicitely removes, among other, also a symlink to /usr/bin/tlmgr. The actual perl script tlmgr.pl is provided by texlive-core. I removed the removal of the symlink and rebuilt texlive-bin, but then some perl modules were not found. So there seem to be some more doings.

Anyway, a feature request in th bug tracker would be the appropiate place to discuss this.

Salkay · 2018-06-21 02:48:55

Stefan Husmann wrote:

I removed the removal of the symlink and rebuilt texlive-bin, but then some perl modules were not found.

Thank you for testing.

Stefan Husmann wrote:

Anyway, a feature request in th bug tracker would be the appropiate place to discuss this.

I opened a task, and edited the wiki. Thank you again for your help.

cfr · 2018-06-22 22:47:56

Do note that setting the default paper size to A4 with tlmgr, although not entirely unuseful, is not that useful. You still need to either choose a class which has A4 as default or load a package and set it to A4 or set it manually in every document in order to ensure that your page layout matches the paper size. That is, you need something like

\usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}

whether you set the paper size to A4 globally or not. Otherwise, you end up with US layout on A4 paper.

If you do use this line (in a standard class), though, geometry ensures that the paper size matches the layout. So, with the above line, you'll get A4 layout on A4 paper - regardless of global settings, whereas with

\usepackage{geometry}

you'll get US letter layout on US letter paper - regardless of global settings.

While I always set the default to A4 globally, it doesn't actually make any difference to the code I use when writing documents.

Salkay · 2018-06-23 01:37:17

cfr wrote:

Do note that setting the default paper size to A4 with tlmgr, although not entirely unuseful, is not that useful. You still need to either choose a class which has A4 as default or load a package and set it to A4 or set it manually in every document in order to ensure that your page layout matches the paper size.

Ah okay, thank you. I did misunderstand what the default paper size would provide. Thank you for all that information; it's very helpful. So if setting the default paper size to A4 with tlmgr only fixes half the problem, it is totally pointless then? Does your explicit manual declaration override whatever default there is anyway?

cfr · 2018-06-24 00:50:35

Salkay wrote:

Ah okay, thank you. I did misunderstand what the default paper size would provide. Thank you for all that information; it's very helpful. So if setting the default paper size to A4 with tlmgr only fixes half the problem, it is totally pointless then? Does your explicit manual declaration override whatever default there is anyway?

If you are using standard classes with, say, the geometry package, it makes zero difference what default is set globally. geometry ensures layout matches paper size, but it ignores the global setting and imposes US letter unless you explicitly say otherwise in this particular document.

I don't know if any classes which default to A4 set layout without setting paper size. LaTeX core sets the layout to US letter, but doesn't change the paper size, so if your global setting is A4 you have a mismatch. If there's a class which defaults to A4 layout without setting paper size, setting the paper size globally would have a point. I don't know there is no such class, but I doubt any of the major classes which default to A4 layout don't set the paper size.

However, the fact that the layout is set to US letter is a feature of the LaTeX format, whereas the global paper size setting is global for all formats.

Hence, it may be less pointless if you use a different format or if you use some more obscure class or package which sets layout to A4 without setting the matching paper size.

I'm a big fan of installing TeX from upstream. But I certainly wouldn't consider going to that trouble just to set the global paper size. Since I essentially use LaTeX for everything (almost), it would make essentially zero difference to the code I need to use A4 rather than US letter.

Last edited by cfr (2018-06-24 00:52:43)

cfr · 2018-06-24 01:03:07

Salkay wrote:

Stefan Husmann wrote:
Anyway, a feature request in th bug tracker would be the appropriate place to discuss this.
I opened a task, and edited the wiki. Thank you again for your help.

Making tlmgr usable on a machine which uses TeX Live from a Linux distro's packages is fraught. It is designed to manage the installation of the distribution. As I understand it, Linux distros which do include it in usable form patch it to restrict or alter what it does. Note that I've never used a distro-installed version of TeX Live, so this is very much second or third-hand knowledge and I might have misunderstood how these things are managed, but it is definitely doctored so that use does not interfere with the distro-packaged TEXMF tree managed by the distro's package manager.

I think it highly unlikely that Arch would want to do anything similar, since it runs counter to the entire philosophy. I think the proper answer is that if you want to use tlmgr, you should install vanilla TeX Live from upstream. If you insist on using tlmgr with Arch-packaged TL, then you would need to package tlmgr yourself, perhaps borrowing from one of the modified versions provided by other Linux distros. Of course, I have no idea how the actual packager(s) will respond, but this is, IMHO, what they *ought* to say .

Salkay · 2018-06-26 10:19:09

cfr wrote:

If you are using standard classes with, say, the geometry package, it makes zero difference what default is set globally.

Thank you very much for that information. It's very useful!

cfr wrote:

I think it highly unlikely that Arch would want to do anything similar, since it runs counter to the entire philosophy.

Fair enough. Partially I thought it appropriate to open the report because the wiki spoke of tlmgr, so I guess we see what the maintainer(s) response is.

cfr · 2018-06-27 01:55:22

Salkay wrote:

Partially I thought it appropriate to open the report because the wiki spoke of tlmgr, so I guess we see what the maintainer(s) response is.

Yes, that sounds right. If they plan to keep tlmgr unusable, the wiki should reflect *that*; if not, the package should reflect *that*. And anyway, I shouldn't second guess what they'll say and that's all it was, guessing .

Arch Linux

#1 2018-06-15 02:55:58

tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#2 2018-06-17 20:17:25

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#3 2018-06-17 21:47:45

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#4 2018-06-18 14:36:15

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#5 2018-06-18 23:29:37

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#6 2018-06-19 07:32:47

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#7 2018-06-21 02:48:55

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#8 2018-06-22 22:47:56

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#9 2018-06-23 01:37:17

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#10 2018-06-24 00:50:35

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#11 2018-06-24 01:03:07

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#12 2018-06-26 10:19:09

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

#13 2018-06-27 01:55:22

Re: tlmgr not installed; can't change TeX paper size

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