Re: [Groff] influencing page size on build

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > I patch the /usr/share/groff_font/devps/DESC file and change
> > the value "paperlength 843400"
> 
> This file did not exist on my system. It seems to be trying to parse
> something in /etc, and getting it wrong (not everyone runs DNS). I'd
> like to be able to set the option explicitly, rather than have
> configure go through lots of heuristics and get it wrong.

There is a Debian extension to groff's paper selection mechanism (or
rather, groff has only a default paper selection mechanism at
configuration time).  To cite groff's PROBLEMS file:


  * I've configured groff for A4 paper, but gtroff still seems to
    think that the length of a page (as returned by \n(.p) is 11
    inches.

  This is intentional.  The PAGE option is used only by grops.  For
  compatibility with ditroff, the default page length in gtroff is
  always 11 inches.  The page length can be changed with the `pl'
  request.


As Ted wrote, say

   PAGE=A4 ./configure

to set the the paper length for grops.


    Werner