The O tavo Pa kage
StefanA.Revets
Abstra t
The O tavopa kage is a modi ation of the standard
L A
T
E
Xbook lass,writtentohelpprodu ebooksof las-
si al design, format and layout. The page sizes made
available arethe lassi al o tavosizes andthe margins
are al ulateda ordingtolateGothi pre epts. Anat-
temptismadetomaintaintheuniformityoftheprinting
grid,anddisplayiskeptunobtrusive.
1 Introdu tion
Donald Knuth developed T
E
X be auseofhis grow-
ing dissatisfa tionwith the ommer ial typesetting
of his books `The Art of Computer Programming'
[4℄. The program grew into a typesetting system,
withagreatdealofattentionandingenuitydevoted
tothe al ulationsofthepla ementofletters,words
and paragraphs on the page. The prefa e of the
T
E
Xbook beginswiththewords`Thisisahandbook
about T
E
X, anew typesetting systemintended for
the reationofbeautifulbooks...' [3℄. Morepeople
began to use T
E
X, and, with the advent of L A
T
E X,
ready-made lass les be ame part of the system.
The standard style and lass les tended to show
o the apabilities of thesystem, rather than on-
formtogooddesign. PhilipTaylorputitwithsome
humour and onsiderablepre ision: `Knuth, in his
losing exhortation, wrote: \Go forth now and
reatemasterpie esofthepublishingart." Nowhere,
so far asI antra e, did he write: \and let every
oneofthem shriek`T
E
X'from everypage"...' [9℄.
Class leshavebeenproposedandareavailable
fromCTANwhi h givethemorefastidioususerthe
meanswithwhi h tomoderateat leastsomeof the
ex essesofthesestandardL A
T
E
Xstyles. TheKOMA
pa kageis a good example[7℄, and sois theex el-
lentMemoir lassofPeterWilson[15℄. Themanual
ofMemoirisanespe iallyworthwhileread,aspub-
li ationsondesignandstylein bookmakingarenot
ne essarilyeasyto obtainor onsult.
Nevertheless, lass les ontinue to allow the
usersubstantialleewayin design and layout,ade-
greeoffreedomwhi hhasleadand ontinuestolead
toT
E
X-shriekingpages.
2 Ba kground
Tomake abookisaninterestingandsomewhatin-
volved pro ess [10℄. The text is set in type and
printed on paper. The printing is done on large
Sheet Broadside O tavo
(in) (mm) Ratio
Fools ap 13 1
/
2
x17 108x171 1.588
Crown 15x20 127x191 1.500
Post 15
1
/
4
x19 121x194 1.605
LargePost 16 1
/
2
x21 133x210 1.571
Demy 17
1
/
2 x22
1
/
2
143x222 1.556
Medium 18x23 146x229 1.565
Royal 20x25 159x254 1.600
SuperRoyal 21x27 171x267 1.556
Imperial 22x30 191x279 1.467
Table1: Classi alEnglishsheetsizes
theyare folded intosignatures. Theprintedsheets
are gathered,folded intosignatures, and passedon
to a bookbinder who sews the signatures into the
book proper. Thebound books are nally utand
overed.
As isso oftenthe asewithold and venerable
rafts, a orid terminology developed whi h fa il-
itated onta ts between the guilds of printers and
binders,whileatthesametimeinspiringsomesort
ofgrudgingrespe tintheuninitiated,keepingthem
atbay.
2.1 The paper sheets
Thesheetsofpaper,thebroadsides, omein alim-
ited number of more or less standard sizes. Lab-
arre's `Di tionary and en y lopedia of paper and
paper-making'[5℄ is anabsorbingmineofinforma-
tion,listingamongstmanyotherfas inatingdetails,
thenamesusedtodesignateparti ularsheetsofpa-
per. In the Anglo-Saxon world, sheets are known
as Fools ap, Crown, Post, Demy, Medium, Royal,
SuperRoyalandImperial(table1).
Of ourse,di erent ountriesadoptedtheirown
habits and standards. It is well known that typo-
graphi standardsinFran edevelopedinadi erent,
separateway. TheDidotpointandtheCi ero(some
7% larger than their Anglo-Saxon point and pi a
equivalent),the`modern'typefa eswiththeir har-
a teristi verti al shading and hairline serifs, on-
tinueto exert theirin uen e onEuropeantypeset-
ting. Itisthereforenotsurprisingthattherearealso
Fren hsheetsofpaper(table2).
WesterntypesettingbeganwithJohannesGut-
enberg,and theGermani tradition isfundamental
to theprintingofbooks. Thedevelopmentand in-
tera tions with theother European styles of typo-
graphyisengrossingand omplex(M Leansket hes
Sheet Broadside O tavo Ratio
(mm) (mm)
Clo he 300x400 100x150 1.500
Telliere 340x440 110x170 1.545
Coquille 440x560 140x220 1.571
Carre 450x560 140x225 1.607
Couronne 460x720 180x230 1.277
Royal 480x630 157x240 1.529
Raisin 500x650 162x250 1.543
Jesus 560x760 190x280 1.474
Colombier 620x850 212x310 1.462
Soleil 580x800 200x290 1.450
GrandAigle 700x1040 260x350 1.346
Table2: Classi alFren hsheet sizes
Sheet Broadside O tavo Ratio
(mm) (mm)
Propatria 340x430 108x170 1.574
Bienenkorb 360x450 112x180 1.607
Bis hof 380x480 120x190 1.583
Register 420x530 132x210 1.591
Kl.Median 440x560 140x220 1.571
Regal 440x670 167x220 1.317
Lexi on 500x650 162x250 1.543
Regal 500x720 180x250 1.388
SuperRoyal 540x680 170x270 1.588
Imperial 570x780 195x285 1.462
Table3: Classi alGermansheetsizes
arti lesonthesubje t anbefoundinKlein[2℄;and
there is alsoagood dis ussion in Williamson[14℄).
Itdoesnot omeasasurprisethento ndthatdif-
feren es and divergen es extend to the dimensions
ofthesheetsofpaperprintedon(table3).
Folding the sheets adds another set of terms:
a singlefold yields a folio, a double fold aquarto,
a triple fold an o tavo and so on ( g. 1). Hen e,
the ombination of a sheet name and the number
offolds denotes aparti ularand pre isesize of the
book[5,14℄.
JanTs hi holddevoted his life to typography,
and to the design and produ tion of books. Over
the years, he wrote extensively about many of his
( hanging) views and dis overies. Later in life, he
assembledhis ndingsinanoverview,dis ussingin
amore oherent, on entratedfashion manyof the
questionswhi hfa eanyonewishingtomakeabook
[12℄. Ofparti ularinterestishisanalysisofsizeand
Sheet (in) (mm) Ratio
letter 8
1
/
2
x11 216x279 1.292
legal 8
1
/
2
x14 216x356 1.648
exe utive 7 1
/
4 x10
1
/
2
184x267 1.451
A4 8
1
/
4 x11
3
/
4
210x297 1.414
A5 5
7
/
8 x8
1
/
4
148x210 1.414
B5 7x9
7
/
8
176x250 1.420
Table4: Modernsheetsizes
Throughhis histori al investigations, he made
averystrongand onvin ing aseagainstthe`mod-
ern' tenden y of making squarishbooks. His eleg-
ant,eloquentandwellillustrateddis ourse remains
valid today and guides us away from the ugliness
of the onvenientbut rathersquareA format(pro-
portion1:
p
2)ba ktothemorere tangularformats
with proportions tending towards the Golden Ra-
tio (1:1.618). It is ertainly no a ident that the
o tavo-folded sheets of paper traditionally used in
the printing of books show proportions whi h fall
veryni elywithinthisrange(asyou anseeintables
1to3). Thetraditionalsheetsyieldtwoproportion
groups, i.e., broadsheet, quarto, sextode imo form
the rst set, while folio, o tavo, trigesimo-se undo
makeuptheotherset. A rownsheet,forexample,
will hange from a3:4 proportion to a 2:3 propor-
tion and ba k. In ontrast, the ISO A series has
the(dubious)advantageofretainingitsproportions
nomatter how oftenitis folded. Thepri efor the
onvenien e of the 1:
p
2proportion is the ugliness
ofitssquarishlook. Comparingtheentriesin table
4with theothertablesshowstheprevalen eofthis
`square'natureinthemodernstandardsheets.
Broadside
Folio
Quarto
O tavo
Figure1: Foldingterminology
textto pagelength textarea
6:9 44%
7:10 49%
8:11 53%
9:12 56%
10:13 59%
Table5: Rosarivo'spagedivisionto textarea
2.2 The spread
Thesize andtheproportionsofthetypeblo k,and
their relations to the page, have greatly exer ised
themindsofthemakersofbooks,andmu hinkhas
beenspilledarguinginfavourofand/oragainstany
design. An ex ellent illustration of theplethora of
designs is found in the se ond hapter of Wilson's
manualofhis memoir lass[15℄. Heshowssome32
(!) di erent page designs whi h have been used in
a tualbooks,madebetween1087and1995.
Ts hi holdrealisedthatthe rstprinterslooked
for thesize and proportions of pageand typeblo k
to the handwritten books. He reasoned that this
would haveled to theestablishingof se ret anons
known only to the initiated of the workshops. He
setoutonthelaborioustaskoftryingtoredis over
these anonsthroughmeasuringmany,manyhistor-
i albooks.Ts hi holdsu eeded,andpublishedhis
ndingsin1953. Hefoundtwomethods,onepreval-
entin theMiddleAges, andadi erent,lateGothi
one. It turned out that the latter anon had also
beenarrivedatthroughadi erent onstru tionby
VandeGraaf[13℄( g.2,ontheleft),adapting the
method of thePi ardian ar hite t Villard de Hon-
ne ourt,whowasa tiveinthetwelfth entury. This
methodhasbeenbroughtba ktoattentioninmod-
erntimesbyHansKayser[1℄.
VandeGraaf Rosarivo
Rosarivo on rmedthisdeterminationthrough
his own, independent dis overyof another method
whi h, happily, yielded the same results [8℄. Ros-
arivo's method is very easy to use and implement
algorithmi ally: divide theheightandwidth of the
pageintoanequalnumber,assignoneparttomake
up theinner and upper margins, and two parts to
makeuptheouterand lowermargins,with there-
mainder de ningtheareaavailablefor printingthe
bodytext( g.2,ontheright).
Theareao upiedbythetextblo krelativeto
the totalareaofthe pagefollowsdire tly from the
numberof divisions, asshownin table 5. It omes
assomethingofasurprisetonoti ethatonlyabout
half the areaof apageis o upied with text. And
yet,for enturies,the6:9divisionofpagedimensions
wasverymu h thenorm. Both TownandWilliam-
son dis uss the matter of margins at somelength,
and deplorethe shrinking of white spa e with the
adventof`modern,e onomi al'times[10,14℄.
2.3 The typeblo k
Determining the right amount of leading between
linesofprintisnotastraightforwardmatter. Itde-
pendsverymu honthenatureofthefount,itssize,
andthelengthoftheline. Fountswithveryshortex-
tenders(ofwhi hTimesisanexample)requiremore
leadingthan fountswithnormal orlongextenders.
Thereaderbene ts onsiderably frommoreleading
whenthetextismadeupoflonglines. Butwhatever
leadingis arrivedat, itshould remain xedfor the
entiretext,yieldinga onstant,regulargridoflines.
At least, that has been the position of European
printers. Ameri an printers took a di erent point
of view,andpreferred tomaintainthe unityof the
printedblo kasawhole. Thustheyhavebeenpre-
pared to upset theleading between oreven within
paragraphs in order to maintain theoverall size of
theprintedarea. KnuthdevelopedT
E
Xto deales-
pe ially with books ontaining mathemati s, a no-
toriously diÆ ulttask fortypesetters. The ingenu-
ity required to deal algorithmi ally with this task
istruly onsiderable,and ompromises ouldhardly
beavoided. Theregularityofthe printinggridwas
onevi timofthesolutionsarrivedat.
It should be lear by now that the standard
book lassin ludedin L A
T
E
Xrequiresafairamount
of adjustment to re e t the design prin iples just
highlighted. TheO tavopa kageis an attempt to
providesu ha lass le.
3 Rationale
For a great many de ades, o tavo-size books were
thenameforanattempttojoinandhopefullyrevive
this tradition. The O tavo lass is a modi ation
of the standard L A
T
E
X book lass, with a similar,
but limited, numberof optionsand hoi es. These
limitations are builtin quite deliberately: it is the
very point of this lass to assist in the making of
booksfollowingtheparti ulardesignprin iplesand
guidelineswhi hhelpedtoprodu ebeautifulbooks
duringtheRenaissan e.
TheideabehindO tavoistohaveaquiet,un-
obtrusivedesignwhi hisnotmeanttoshoutat the
reader, but rather gently helps her along. Three
majorfeatures hara teriseO tavo:
Thepagesizes arethe lassi alo tavosizes.
Themarginsarede nedasthelateGothi ones.
Anattemptismadetomaintainauniformgrid
fortheentiretext.
Someofthelesserfeaturesarethefollowing;
Alldisplayisprodu edasquiet,unostentatious
lines.
Chapters and lower-orderse tions are left un-
numbered.
Figures,tablesandequationsare onse utively
numberedthroughoutthedo ument.
Tables of ontents, of gures, et ., do notuse
dottedlines.
Atitle pageisnotmadebut an berequested.
Moredis ussionofthesepointsfollows.
3.1 Page sizes
Thede nition of o tavo-sized pagesand the al u-
lation of margins in harmony with the dimensions
of thepage is thene essary rst stepfor themak-
ingofabeautiful book. Itprovidesthe anvasand
theframethatwillbewiththereaderfortheentire
lengthofthebook. Theirbeauty,even ifonlysub-
liminallynoti edorappre iated,does ontributeto
thepleasureofholdingandreadingthebook.
3.2 Margins
The marginsare al ulatedby applyingRosarivo's
method anddividingthepage dimensionsintoten,
withsevenparts forthetextandthreeforthemar-
gins,whi hyields49%areaofthepagewithprinted
text. Thisissomewhat moregeneroususageof the
pagethanthemedievaltraditionofaninefolddivi-
sionwithonly44%ofthepage overedbytext,but
su hlavishmarginswouldlikelystartlethemodern
reader. Headers andfootersarepla edoutsidethis
blo k,andtherebyhelpto reateafeelingofbalan e
betweeno upiedandwhitespa eonthepage. Es-
pe iallythe onsistentpla ingof thefolio entered
3.3 Title page
A title pageis an integraland veryne essarypart
ofanybook. However,produ ingasatisfa torytitle
page is not as straightforward a matter as it may
seemat rst. Evenasuper ialperusalofthemany
pages and examples devoted on the subje t in the
already ited works by Ts hi hold and Williamson
will onvin ethereaderthat makingapropertitle
pageisnotsomethingtobedoneautomati ally[12,
14℄. From a design perspe tive, it is neither feas-
ible, nordesirable, tolaydownhard andfast rules
fortheorganisationorthepla ementofthevarious
elementsneededonatitle page.
Apartfromanydesign onsiderations,thereare
also some good pra ti al reasonsto make the title
pagesasaseparatedo ument. Agreatdealisgained
bytreatingtitlepagesasanintegralpartoftheend-
papers. Whenbinding(good)books,endpapersful-
l bothafun tional andanstheti role [10℄. The
`W', or `zig-zag' endpaper in parti ular is a most
usefulandeÆ ientkindofendpaper,andonewhi h
bene ts onsiderablyfromtheinsertionofanextra
folded sheet. This is the very pla e to put a title
pagesequen e.
Ideally,aseparatefolioshouldbemade,bearing
onthe rstre topagethebastardtitle,ontheverso
possiblyafrontispie e,orfailingsomethingsuitable,
left blank. Thenextre tobears title,author,pub-
lisherandthelike,andthe nalversoprovidesspa e
forthe biblioorimprint. Theequivalentshould be
done for theendpaperat theba k of the book. It
provides a good opportunity of bringing the olo-
phon ba k into use: a folio bearing the olophon
oughttobeinsertedin theba kendpaper. Bypro-
du ing these pages separate from the main do u-
ment, there is no interferen e with the page num-
bering,nordoesitupset thewayin whi h thesig-
naturesareassembled.
4 Implementation
4.1 Class options
TheoptionsavailableinO tavoarelargelythesame
asthoseofthestandardbook lass. However,their
ontentanddefault settingsareoftendi erent.
page size The prede ned page sizes are, from
smallesttolargest: fools ap, rown,post,large-
post,demy,medium, royal,superroyalandim-
perial. Thedefaultsizeis rown.
fount size Thesizeoptionsarethestandard10pt,
11ptand12pt,withthedefaultsizesetto10pt.
The hoi eofafountsizeloadsparametersand
measureswhi hdependonthissizefromoneof
nal/draft Similar to the book lass: draft puts
bla kmarkswherelinesareoverfullonthe opy.
Thedefaultis nal.
(no)titlepage Contrarytothebook lass,thepro-
du tion of a title page is noten ouraged: the
defaultis thereforenotitlepage. If youdowish
to have atitlepage, you still haveto issue the
\maketitle ommandin yourtext.
open(right/any) New hapters normallystarton
are topage,butsomekindsofbooks,e.g.,nov-
els,maywellbebettero with haptersstarting
oneitherside. Thedefault isopenright.
(one/two) olumn The option to set text in two
olumn is possibly useful in onjun tion with
thetwoorthreelargestpagesizes(imperial,su-
perroyalandroyal). Thedefaultisone olumn.
leqno, eqno Thesetwooptionsdealwiththeset-
ting of mathemati al formul. leqno sets the
equationnumbertotheleftof theformula,in-
stead of the default right position. eqno re-
de nes the math display environment, setting
equations ushwiththeleftmarginandinden-
tedbya\mathindentamount.
4.2 Printinggrid
An attempt is made to maintain a uniform print-
inggrida rossthetext. Thismeansthat waysand
meanshadtobefoundto ountera tthebehaviour
of some of the ingenious T
E
X algorithms. Rather
thanattempt whatwouldamounttoarewritingof
partoftheT
E
X ode,whi hreallyistoodauntinga
task,itseemspossibletosubverttheT
E
Xalgorithms
andmakeitdoourbiddingafterallwithajudi ious
settingofparameters,lengthsandsizes.
The rst steptakenis to set thetextheightto
anexa t,naturalnumberof \baselineskip. Next,
\parskipisset tozerowithno`glue'extension, so
that T
E
X willnot be temptedto put extra leading
betweenanyparagraphs.
Dealing with the spa e surrounding headings
in the text is somewhat more involved. The solu-
tionadoptedistousewhereatallpossiblemultiples
(andfra tions)ofthe\baselineskip,andallowfor
someadjustments byspe ifyingnegative glueonly.
In lusion of stret hable, positive gluemay prompt
T
E
X to stret h beyond the measure stated (under
protest,butitwillhappennevertheless),whileT
E X
will never shrink glue beyond the measure given.
A similar tri k isapplied to thespa e surrounding
lists. In ontrast,thede nitionofspa esurrounding
oats does ontain a modi um of stret hableglue,
withthehopethatT
E
Xwill llinwithabitofwhite
spa earoundthe oatbutleavethegridofprinted
Nevertheless, there will betimes when thea -
tual text, the parameters de ned by O tavo, and
T
E
X onspiretoprodu etrulyhorribleresults. Su h
misfortunes allfordire t intervention,or,theuser
willing, suggestions of improving the de nitions of
theparametersproposedherefortheO tavo lass.
4.3 Quiet, unobtrusive design
O tavoyields quiet, gentle-looking texts thanks to
a number of design hoi es. One highly e e tive
de ision was to avoid the use of bold founts alto-
gether: noneof the display uses it at all. Headers
areset abovethetextin small apitals, followinga
suggestion by Williamson: it is both e e tive and
dis reet.
Theheadingsusedby haptersandse tionsare
keptlow-keyaswell,andaredi erentiatedthrough
thesurroundingwhitespa eandtheirpositionaway
fromthemargin. Se tionheadingsare enteredand
set in small apitals, using the \Large fount size.
Subse tion headings are pla ed 1em from the left
margin andset in normalsize small apitals. Sub-
subse tions are likewise pla ed1em awayfrom the
left margin, but have less white spa e above and
belowandaresetinnormalsizeitali s.
Anexampleofthelayoutprodu edbyO tavois
probablymoreeloquentthanthisverbaldes ription.
Figure 3 is a redu ed opy of a page spread made
withO tavo,showinga hapteropeningandvarious
se tiontitles,aswellastherelationofthetypeblo k
tothepages.
Colle ting
whereverwater anbefound.Thene essarywa-
terspansexpansesfromnomorethanthethin
lmofraindrops lingingtosomemossesona
wall,overapuddlealongsideagrassybank,toa
largelakeorano ean.
Pi kingup
Thesimplestwayof olle tinghopefullyprotist-
ontainingsamplesisbypi kingupsomelikely
substrate.Littleisneededbeyondaknife,aspoon
andsome ontainers.
Terrestrialprotists
Moss ushions anbepi kedupfromsoiloreased
o stoneswithaknife,leavesde ayinginpuddles
pi kedup,andaspoonwillassistins oopingup
somesurfa emudfromthebottomofapool.The
feltys um overingstemsandleavesofsubmerged
waterplants anbeshakenintoa ontainer,or
re overedbystrippingor uttingbitso .
Dryland
Theterrestrialenvironment,withitsforprotists
highly omplexstru tureandoftenintenseenvir-
onmentalpressures,deservesmoreattentionasa
2
Colle ting
Beforesettingoutto olle t,itiswelltopause
rstandre e twhereprotistsprefertoleadtheir
lives.Wearefortunateinbeingnolongerdoomed
tospendmanyhoursoffruitlesssear hing.Many
havegonebeforeus,andmu hhasbeenlearned
aboutthefavouritehauntsofourorganisms.Hap-
pily,thankstothea umulationofre ordsofo -
urren eswe andis ernanumberofre urrent
themes,ofrequirementsandgeneralisationswhi h
helpandguideusinoursear hes,espe iallywhen
weleavethealreadywell-troddenpaths.
Asisthe aseforanyorganism,protistsrequire
watertolive.Be ausetheyaresingle ells,with
justasingleplasmamembranetoshieldthem
fromtheworldoutside,theyareverysensitive
toanykindofdehydration.Andsothe rstgen-
eralisationisarrivedat:protistsaretobefound
1
Figure 3: ExampleofO tavooutput
Numberingiseithersimpli edorhasbeendone
away with altogether. None of the headings bear
numbers,asO tavosets\se numdepthto 2. This
hapters and se tionsare absolutely required. Fig-
uresandtablesarenumbered onse utivelythrough-
outthe book. Theex ellent apabilities ofT
E X to
make and maintain ross-referen es leaves little in
favourofmaintaininga hapternumber. gurenumber
type ofs heme. With sometrepidation, this num-
bering system is also applied to equations. There
seemstobeasubstantialtraditionofhavinganum-
beringsystemforequationswhi hin orporates hapter
andse tionnumbers. AsfarasI ansee,thereisno
parti ularneedforsu hasystem,on eagain bear-
ing in mind the powerful ross-referen ing apabil-
itiesofT
E
X,andit wouldalsobein onsistentwith
thenumberingsystemusedfortablesand gures.
A nal, minor point is that tables of ontents
donotdisplaytheuglinessofdottedlinesseparating
entries and page numbers. However, these an be
broughtba kif required,by resetting \dotsepto
asmallernumber.
5 Somehintson the making ofbooks
Thanks to ex ellentworks onbookbinding su h as
thebookbyLawren eTown[10℄,thephysi almak-
ingofbooks lieswellwithin rea h ofanyone aring
tomakethee ort. Withtheavailabilityofanumber
ofadditionalprogramsfromCTAN,itisastraight-
forward matterto organiseandprintout atext in
signatures. Hereare someofthemeanswhi h have
provenbothusefulande e tive.
Thefoursmallestpapersizesde nedbyO tavo,
i.e.,fools ap, rown,postandlargepost, anbemade
to t in pairs on an A4 sheet. Hen e it is within
rea hofanyonewitharun-of-the-millprintertopro-
du ebooksin theseformats. All thatisrequiredis
awayinwhi htoorganisethepagesintoasequen e
sothatsignatures anbemade. Thisrequiresafew
arefulbutsimpleadjustments.
Theproblemliesintheimpositionofthepages
onanA4sheet. Thefourformatsmentionedareall
narrowerthan an A5 sheet, and hen e extraspa e
is leftat theouter margins. This is notaproblem
with the odd-numbered pages, as their inner mar-
ginismadeto oin idewiththeinnermarginofthe
A5sheet. However,even-numberedpageshavetheir
outermarginmadeto oin idewiththeoutermar-
gin of the A5 sheet, the latter of ourse being too
wide. What is requiredis for the inner marginsof
the sheets to oin ide. The simplest solution is to
addthesinglelinetothepreambleofthedo ument:
\addtolength{\evensidemargin}{offset}
(whereoffsetis148:5mm \paperwidthwithA4
paper,and139:7mm \paperwidthwithletterpa-
pageswith dvidvi,dvips,and thelike. On e this
is done,theprodu tion ofsignatures isstraightfor-
ward.
Threestepsareneededwhen usingdvips:
1. dvips -ta5 h lei
2. psbook -s16 h lei.ps h lei.tmp
3. psnup -pa4 -Pa5 -l -2 -s1.0
h lei.tmph lei.ps
while dvihplj orsimilar drivers anbe instru ted
bysettinganumberofswit hes,e.g.,
prthpljh texfile + olumns:2 +rows:1
+se tion-size:4 +full-last-se tion
+page-width:148.5mm +page-height:210mm
+lands ape-mode +double-sided:odd[even℄
It may be ne essaryto instru tthe printer to shift
ea h page a little on the sheet to ensure perfe t
register, and a little experimenting is thus alled
for. Thesesetsof ommandsandswit hesyieldsig-
natures made up of 16 pages on 4 sheets, just as
onewouldexpe tfromtraditionalprintingonsheets
whi hwouldbefolded intoano tavoformat. Su h
an arrangement is very e e tive and handy when
bindingthebook.
When sewing these signaturesin librarystyle,
andparti ularlywhenoptingforahollowba k,the
amountof paperthat tends to `disappear' into the
bindingseldom ex eeds1mm. Itis thereforeunne-
essary to worry about shifting the pages varying
amountsin fun tionoftheirpla ein thesignature.
6 Availability
O tavo is available from a CTAN near you, in the
dire tory /ma ros/latex/ ontrib/o tavo, under
the L A
T
E
X Proje t Publi Li ense. The distribu-
tion onsistsof.dtxand.ins les,whi hwillgen-
erate the o tavo. ls, o t10. lo, o t11. loand
o t12. lo les.
7 A knowledgements
O tavoisamodi ationof lasses.dtxwrittenby
LeslieLamport(1992),FrankMittelba h(1994{97)
and Johannes Braams (1994{97). My own ontri-
butionisrestri tedtotweakingofsomeparameters
and true redit is due to Lamport, Mittelba h and
Braamsfortheirmonumentale orts.
Referen es
[1℄ H. Kayser. Ein harmonikaler Teilungskanon.
O identVerlag,Zuri h,1946.
[2℄ M. Klein, Y. S hwemer-S heddin, and
E. Spiekermann. Type & Typographers.
[3℄ D. Knuth. The T
E
Xbook. Addison-Wesley,
Reading,1984.
[4℄ D. Knuth. Digital Typography. CSLI Publi a-
tions,Stanford, 1998.
[5℄ E.J.Labarre. Di tionary and En y lopedia of
Paper and Paper-making. Swets & Zeitlinger,
Amsterdam,se ondedition,1969.
[6℄ R.M Lean. The Thames and HudsonManual
of Typography. Thamesand Hudson, London,
1997.
[7℄ F. Neukam, M. Kohm, and A. Kielhorn. Das
KOMA-s ript paket. CTAN, /ma ros/latex/
ontrib/koma-s ript,2002.
[8℄ R. Rosarivo. Divina proportio typographi a.
S herpe,Krefeld,1961.
[9℄ P.Taylor. Book designfor T
E
X users, Part1:
Theory. TUGboat,19:65{74,1998.
[10℄ L.Town.Bookbindingbyhand,forstudentsand
raftsmen. Faber&Faber,London,1951.
[11℄ J. Ts hi hold. Die maverhaltnisse der Bu h-
seite, des S hriftfeldes und der Rander. S h-
weizer Graphis he Mitteilungen, 65:294{305,
1946.
[12℄ J.Ts hi hold. AusgewahlteAufsatzeuber Fra-
gen der Gestalt des Bu hes und der Typo-
graphie. BirkhauserVerlag,Basel,1987.
[13℄ J.A.VandeGraaf. Nieuweberekeningvoorde
vormgeving. Tete,1946:95{100,1946.
[14℄ H.Williamson.Methodsofbookdesign. Oxford
UniversityPress,Oxford,1966.
[15℄ P. Wilson. The memoir lass for on gurable
typesetting. CTAN, /ma ros/latex/ ontrib/
memoir,2001.
StefanA.Revets
Thijssenlaan22
B1780Wemmel
Belgium
s.revetstis ali.be
