Specifying Dimensions in LaTeX

Specifying dimensions are an important part of working with LaTeX. Serval areas of the definition of documents can be specified in terms of vertical or horizontal dimensions.

For example, to determine the size of pages of a document you can use a command that receives a dimension as one of a parameter. This can be done both to change the height as the weight of the page.

Another example is the formatting of lists, such as bulleted lists and definition lists. These can be changed by defining parameters such as the distance between elements or the indentation in relation of the beginning of the line.

Measurement Units

LaTeX accepts several measurement units, depending on how you prefer to specify dimensions on a page. For example, units used include centimeters, millimiters, inches, picas, among others.

Here are a few examples of how to used these measurement units as part of a dimension specification:

\textwidth 6.5in
\linewidth 6.0in

The first example shows how it is possible to change text width in a document to the size of 6.5 inches.

The second example is similar in syntax, and shows how one can reduce the current with of the line produced in a LaTeX document to 6 inches.

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