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I'm trying to make a document suitable for printing as a trade paperback. For that reason I'm using the memoir class using statementpaper which sets the page size to 5.5" x 8.5".

Here's the basic structure I have:

\documentclass[12pt,statementpaper]{memoir}

\usepackage{lipsum} % for sample text

\begin{document}

\lipsum

\end{document}

which produces the following pages:

sample

As you can see, the margins are huge.

How can I get margin sizes that are more appropriate for paperback books of this size?

Steven
  • 427
  • By setting them directly. What is "sane" though? I suppose I could go measure a bunch of book dimensions from my own collection, I'd rather hear it from you. – jon Sep 10 '15 at 02:31
  • I don't know, I just know that no book I own has margins this huge. I assumed there were at least some standard sizes? – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 02:41
  • Yeah, sorry, me neither. Perhaps a search like this would be helpful. – jon Sep 10 '15 at 02:49
  • Once you have found the margins you like, you can set them using memoirs build in interface, no need to include the geometry package – daleif Sep 10 '15 at 16:04
  • Can you elaborate @daleif? Maybe post it in an answer? – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 16:12
  • It is all in in the manual. The fastest is to look up, \setlrmarginsandblock, the equivalent with ul instead of lr and don't forget the vital \checkandfixthelayout – daleif Sep 10 '15 at 16:17
  • Thanks @daleif I've posted a new answer using this recommendation. – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 16:17
  • Since you're using memoir (jolly good!), you should ignore any advice to use geometry; memoir has excellent built-in facilities to do what you want. – Brent.Longborough Sep 10 '15 at 17:56

3 Answers3

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The correct answer as noted by @daleif is to use memoir's built in margin functions:

\setlrmarginsandblock{inner}{outer}{*}
\setulmarginsandblock{top}{bottom}{*}
\checkandfixthelayout

Using margin sizes measured from a 5.5" x 8.5" book printed in 1884:

\setlrmarginsandblock{0.75in}{0.75in}{*}
\setulmarginsandblock{1.00in}{0.625in}{*}
\checkandfixthelayout
Steven
  • 427
  • Not the answer. Remember, memoir has two ways of setting the layout: specifying the margins and thus the text block or specifying the text block and placing that on the paper, thereby defining the margins. The first is probably easier to understand – daleif Sep 10 '15 at 16:21
  • @daleif What are the benefits of the second technique? – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 16:32
  • Depends. Sometimes you are just told that the text should be (around) A x B in size. That calculation becomes tedious to make if you are specifying the text block by setting the margins. So it all depends on the requirements you have. For the most part I use the first one. Do remember that memoir does a height check such that the generated text height match an integral number of lines. – daleif Sep 10 '15 at 16:39
  • @daleif Then it sounds like given the question's requirements, this is the correct answer. – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 16:49
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Per @ArtemMavrim's recommendation to look at the geometry package's documentation, this is how you set four different margins:

\usepackage[lmargin=(inside),rmargin=(outside),tmargin=(top),bmargin=(bottom)]]{geometry}

Using margin recommendations from this random website for a 5.5" x 8.5" book:

\usepackage[lmargin=0.125in,rmargin=0.5in,tmargin=0.75in,bmargin=0.75in]{geometry}

Or if you prefer, here are the margin sizes of a random book printed in 1884:

\usepackage[lmargin=0.75in,rmargin=0.75in,tmargin=1.00in,bmargin=0.625in]{geometry}
Steven
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The margins you object to are the result of literally hundreds of years of experimentation by professional typesetters. Don't mess with them unless you know what you are doing. And if you know what you are doing, you won't mess with them. If you insist, you should first read up on page layout and margins. Also consider that over-long lines (more than some 80 characters, tops) are hard to read.

The memoir class has a few suggested margins, e.g. \semiisopage sets narrower margins.

vonbrand
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  • In theory your warning about not neglecting years of experimentation by professional typesetters sounds legitimate, but when comparing memoir's default margin sizes to actual books that I own in the given size, they are so different that it seems memoir's defaults aren't being applied to a paper of this size automatically, hence going full circle to my question of how to enable such defaults. Either way, I'll look into your suggestion of using \semiisopage and friends. – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 18:18
  • After reading the documentation on this a bit, it's not clear which style is most appropriate for a published book. The closest thing to what books I actually own have is \medievalpage[12], using statementpaper size (5.5" x 8.5"). – Steven Sep 10 '15 at 18:31