Showing the page layout

[David Arnold <darnold@northcoast.com>]

All,

I am aware of \showlayout and Patrick's \ShowLayout.

In the case of the former, I have this in my environment file:

\showlayout

\definelayout[myCustomLayout][
   header=30mm,
   footer=20mm,
   headerdistance=10mm,
   footerdistance=10mm,
   topspace=30mm,
   bottomspace=25mm,
   height=middle,
   leftmargin=25mm,
   rightmargin=30mm,
   leftmargindistance=10mm,
   rightmargindistance=10mm,
   backspace=50mm,
   width=middle,
]

\setuplayout[myCustomLayout]

But when I compile, the first page reveals these measurements:

header=1.99962 cm  %way off
footer 1.99962 cm     %acceptable
headerdistance=0.0 cm  %huh?
footer distance=0.0 cm  %huh?

And the list goes on. These don't seem correct at all. Am I misusing  
this tool?

I've been following the discussion on the beginner's manual with  
interest, biding my time to make my suggestions, thinking about it.  
One thing that really comes to mind is the huge amount of time I  
spent as a beginner trying to figure out what settings in the layout,  
like those above, actually do. And I found the tools for analyzing  
changes to these layout settings did not help very much. Something  
that could help the beginniner's manual very much would be a macro  
that layed the page out accurately with borders around the various  
areas (as in \showframe) that include all parts of the layout, even  
if they wander from the printed page. This would accelerate the  
learning curve for layout dramatically, if it were available.


David