On Sun, Jul 19, 2026 at 12:57:21PM +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 12:32:51PM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 09:41:45AM +0000, Dimitris Papavasiliou wrote:
> > > Since we're on the subject, how would I
> > > best go about changing the font size in Latex to 12pt? The
> > > `@fontsize` command only supports 10 or 11pt. I've added
> > >
> > > \usepackage{fontsize}
> > > \changefontsize{12}
> > >
> > > to my LaTex preamble, which seems to get the job done, but perhaps
> > > there's a more appropriate way to do it?
> >
> > I am not an expert on LaTeX. My go-to resource is "An unofficial
> > reference manual" (https://latexref.xyz/).
> >
> > The following page suggests you can use a "12pt" option in a
> > "document size option":
> >
> > https://latexref.xyz/Font-sizes.html
>
> That would be possible, but it seems to me that it is less practical:
> 1) the \changefontsize comand can happen where @fonttextsize is, for a
> LaTeX document looking more like the Texinfo code
> 2) there is a customization variable for the beginning of the LaTeX
> document, CLASS_BEGIN_USEPACKAGE, but it is more practical to add
> to the preamble in a @latex block the code Dimitris added.
I agree that CLASS_BEGIN_USEPACKAGE is very unwieldy to use, as its value
includes the \usepackage lines, but users could change the
"\documentclass" line on its own by postprocessing the LaTeX output
with sed, awk or similar tool.
> Actually, I would prefer if
>
> @fonttextsize 12
>
> was allowed in Texinfo for LaTeX and possibly other similar formats.
This appears to be solving a different problem. It's a valid goal to
want to be able to change the style of the LaTeX output, including
the paragraph font size. Users should do this with LaTeX language features
- using @fonttextsize to achieve this effect seems sub-optimal to me.
(Similarly, users could use CSS to change the formatting of HTML output,
rather than adding formatting commands to the Texinfo source.)
As far as I can tell, Dimitris was successful in changing the font size,
so there isn't a problem here to be solved by extending the @fontsize
feature.
The @fonttextsize command, as I understand it, can change the font size at
any point in the document (I just tested this). This is too low level a
formatting detail to be providing a Texinfo-language level option for,
in my opinion. We should view the @fonttextsize command as a wart of the
Texinfo language and not a feature to be emulated or extended upon.
> The documentation could either clearly state that Texinfo TeX ignores
> the @-command if value is not 10 or 11, or be more fuzzy in the
> documentation stating that depending on the possibility of the output
> format unsupported font size may be ignored (my preference).
It could be fine to edit the documentation if "@fonttextsize 12" actually
works in LaTeX output. As @fonttextsize does do something in LaTeX output,
it would be wrong to imply it is a command for texinfo.tex only, so being
"more fuzzy" and stating that the command may be ignored depending on the
output format could make sense.
There was a somewhat related discussion about the @microtype command,
which was implemented for LaTeX output as well as in texinfo.tex:
Karl Berry wrote:
> Along the lines of what Gavin said, I think it's more
> useful/important for the LaTeX output from Texinfo to be "normal" LaTeX
> than to try to perfectly replicate texinfo.tex. That won't be doing
> users any favors.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2022-09/msg00070.html
I wrote:
> I'm fine with not enabling microtype in LaTeX output by default (I had
> never thought it was necessary in the first place). As I've already said
> in other messages, the @microtype command was intended for texinfo.tex only,
> not other output formats.
>
> People are free to edit and customize LaTeX output as they like and this
> would include using microtype if they have the right TeX and LaTeX packages
> installed.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2022-09/msg00093.html
