$Icon for course 'LaTeX'$

Pages Layouts & Margin

Until now we’ve silently accepted the size of the margins LaTeX decides. Not anymore! Let’s look changing the amount of white space around your document. And how to add custom headers, footers and other notes within the margin.

Page Layout

Schematic of all the different lengths and margins used for a default page

Remark

This is a right-hand page. The whole schematic is simply mirrored for left-hand pages.

All of these values are defined using regular lengths. This means you can change all of them the way you’re used to. These internal built-in lengths are:

Length	Default	Description	Number
1 inch + `\hoffset`	72pt	Total offset from left edge	1
1 inch + `\voffset`	72pt	Total offset from top edge	2
`\oddsidemargin`	31pt	Margin at the odd side	3
`\topmargin`	20pt	Margin at the top	4
`\headheight`	12pt	Height of the header	5
`\headsep`	25pt	Distance between header and text	6
`\textheight`	592pt	Height of text	7
`\textwidth`	390pt	Width of text	8
`\marginparsep`	10pt	Distance between margin paragraphs and text	9
`\marginparwidth`	35pt	Width of margin paragraph	10
`\footskip`	30pt	Distance between footer and text	11
`\marginparpush`	7pt	Distance between two margin paragraphs	12
`\hoffset`	0pt	Extra horizontal offset from the left	13
`\voffset`	0pt	Extra vertical offset from the top	14
`\paperwidth`	597pt	Width of the actual paper	15
`\paperheight`	845pt	Height of the actual paper	16

Some properties talk about margin paragraphs. This simply means text written in the margin of the document, which is what we’re discussing next.

Margin Notes

LaTeX supports margin notes by default, with the command

1\marginpar[even side text]{odd side text}

That’s great, but it doesn’t support margin notes at all places. For example, footnotes and headers can’t have notes written in the margin. It also has no optional arguments to remedy this.

The marginnote package solves this. The syntax becomes

1\marginnote[vertical offset]{odd side text}

You can switch around the position of the margins with the \reversemarginpar command.

1Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. \marginpar[This margin is not displayed, because article document type has only one side for margin notes]{This is a cool margin note on the big, odd side} 
2
3Proin porttitor justo quis dolor hendrerit, at ultricies nibh accumsan. Duis ut urna leo. Quisque in urna non odio suscipit faucibus quis at est. Proin in enim id leo vehicula ultricies nec at justo. Nam mattis, orci nec ullamcorper finibus, metus turpis laoreet leo, ac lacinia erat est quis risus.

Headers and Footers

Very early in this course, you saw how to automatically set headers and footers by changing the page style.

Now you’re ready to hear: you can set them to anything you like!

Use \markright{text} to set the header for all right-hand pages.
Use \markboth{text}{text} to set the header for all pages.

Within them, use these commands to suit your needs.

Command	Description
`\thepage`	The current page number.
`\leftmark`	Current chapter name, printed like “CHAPTER X. CHAPTER TITLE”
`\rightmark`	Current section name, printed like “X.Y.Z SECTION TITLE”
`\chaptername`	The actual word chapter in the document’s language
`\thechapter`	The number of the current chapter
`\thesection`	The number of the current section.

1\section{First Section}
2\pagestyle{headings}
3\markboth
4    {Section \thesection at page \thepage}
5    {Section \thesection \ at page \thepage} 
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7Lorem ipsum, blabla, you know it by now, I guess.