I've had problems using LaTeX etc. to produce documents in "landscape" mode
(such as for overhead projection) and getting the ps or pdf files to come
out correctly.  The default orientation would be upside down in the
postscript file and I would have to manually select "seascape" mode in
ghostview every time.  But the big problem is that the pdf file made by
ps2pdf would be sideways.  That is no big deal if using ghostview to view
the pdf file (since ghostview can rotate a document), but for those people
using Adobe's Acrobat reader, they are stuck because acroread can't rotate
a document.  (Adobe's distiller program has an autorotate feature that can
get around this, but ps2pdf doesn't yet implement it.)

Examples of this bug are in http://w3.pppl.gov/~hammett/comp/help/texpdf/
in the files bug.tex, bug.dvi, bug.ps, and bug.pdf.  They were produced
with the commands:

latex bug
dvips -Pwww bug
ps2pdf bug.ps

(For comparison, ok.ps and ok.pdf were produced with the workaround below.)

I tried this with the ps2pdf of Ghostscript 7.00 (2001-04-08) (the results
are stored in subdirectory gs7.0), and it now works, at least when doing
"acroread bug.pdf" or "gsview bug.pdf".  But "ghostview bug.pdf" gets the
page size wrong and cuts off half of the page.  If I directly run gs to
view bug.pdf, it works, so the problem might be isolated to ghostview.


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A workaround (found after a lot of work) which fixes this problem in all
cases is to do:

latex file
dvips -Pwww -T11in,8in file
ps2pdf file.ps

Note, I ought to be able to do:

dvips -Pwww -T11in,8.5in file

but this gives weird results, with the file not properly rotated etc.
dvips appears to have a bug which won't allow fractional units or some
other problem?

(The -Pwww switch gets some of the right fonts for making pdf files that
look good on the screen.)

One might have thought that the \special{papersize=11in,8.5in} command in
the latex file should do it all, but without this -T switch to set the
paper size again, the ps file that is created is upside down, and pdf file
produced by ps2pdf ends up sideways.

An alternate fix, which requires hand editing one line of the *.ps file, is
described at

http://www.ens.gu.edu.au/robertk/R/help/00b/1950.html
**************************************

To properly view the intermediate dvi file, do:

xdvi -paper usr file.dvi



**************************

P.S.:  The LaTeX file contains the standard info for landscape mode, such
as:

\special{papersize=11in,8.5in} % meaningful to dvips not xdvi.

\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0.00in} %left margin -3/4 inch.
\setlength{\textwidth}{9.0in}
\setlength{\topmargin}{-1.0in} %top margin -1 inch.
\setlength{\textheight}{7.5in}


**************************

P.S.S.: I tried the option mentioned at
http://www.radicaleye.com/dvips.html of including the command \special{!
TeXDict begin /landplus90{true}store end } in the *.tex file.  This did get
"seascape" mode, but ps2pdf still produced a sideways file.

--Greg Hammett April 11, 2001