Page number location in FRT matter

Question

I have four pages of local-to-PTXprint FRT matter. Page numbering is set to begin on the second page. Numbers ii and iii print on the bottom of the page as expected but iv prints on the top of the page (as do subsequent pages when added in for testing). Is there a way to keep the numbers on the bottom of the page? Thanks.

Answer 1

Hmm. my guess is that pages ii and III have some kind of title on them, but that subsequent pages don’t. At the moment PTXprint categorizes pages into 3 types: title pages, scripture, and other. (Not actually called that).

If you want all the ‘other’ pages everywhere to look like title pages, that can be arranged with enough cryptic commands, but there’s no button on the user interface. If you want just the ‘other’ pages in the introduction to look like title pages, but glossary, etc to look more like scripture pages (without chapter ranges), then the cryptic commands get that much more complicated.

Answer 2

I too encountered a similar problem in recent project. My solution was to move the page numbers in the PDF using Adobe Acrobat Professional. Alternatively, it sounds like you might be able to trick PTXprint if you add a “title” style to page iv.

Comments

Indeed, lying to TeX is quite easy, either with titles that just contain a zero-width or non-breaking space (there needs to be something),
Or you could even put something like this in ptxprint-mods.tex

\makeatletter
\sethook{page}{-4}{\mark{\t@tle}}
\sethook{page}{-5}{\mark{\t@tle}}
\makeatother

Which ought to convince TeX that page -4 and -5 (iv and v) start with a title, even if you actually have a very long paragraph going from page 3 to page 5 without a break. (hopefully you don’t!).

But if you want the change to occur everywhere, then it makes sense to not lie about what’s on the page, but to tell it what you want it to do.

If at present you have a page number on the top-right of odd pages and top-left of even numbered pages, then to make all non-title, non-verse text have page numbers at the middle-bottom, you’d want to say something like:

\def\RHnoVoddright{\empty}
\def\RHnoVevenleft{\empty}
\def\RFnoVoddcenter{\pagenumber}
\def\RFnoVevencenter{\pagenumber}

• RH means running header, RF running footer,
• noV means no verses. There is also title for title page, and nothing in that slot means normal pages.
• even/ odd is referring to the page numbers,
• left/right/center are the 3 the position within the header / footer.

For those that want learn more cryptic commands, the documentation is here.

Answer 3

Thanks David and Eric for the ideas and solutions. You’ve provided a way forward.
Marv Lucas