# verso and recto page margin swapped

During thesis writing, I noticed the recto and verso page margins are swapped. In other words, e.g. page 23 is on the right side (as should be) however it has verso margin setup. The text is thus placed more to the left then should be.

Can someone provide me with a hint how to solve this?

I have:

\usepackage[text={155mm, 24cm}, top=25mm]{geometry}
...
\frontpage
\setcounter{page}{2}


Adding twoside options to the geometry package doesnt work out.

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The default for twoside is to have the wider margin on the outside. – egreg Mar 12 '12 at 9:40
you need to specify what you exprect precisely as a result of your setup (and provide a complete selfcontaint MWE that shows what you get instead). – Frank Mittelbach Mar 12 '12 at 10:51
Currently I can not create a MWE, maybe tonight. However, let's clearify the problem: The margins for recto and verso pages differ in my report. Specificly, the space between the left page border and the text is different than the space between the opposite one. Problem is that this difference is incorrectly applied on recto and verso pages. One would expect that the left space is larger on the recto page. However, the uneven page numbers (recto) have a smaller left margin compoared to the right. This should be opposite. – significant Mar 12 '12 at 11:53
As commented by egreg, it is normal for the outer margin to be the larger. See for example chapter 3 of memdesign.pdf. (Edit: I know this doesn't solve your problem, I'm just saying that there isn't really anything "wrong", as far as I understand your comment.) – Torbjørn T. Mar 12 '12 at 17:14

I'm quoting this answer from stackoverflow:

For debugging page layout, Peter Wilson's layouts package is the way to go. Here's an example for visualising the page design and seeing the dimensions used for it

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{report}% I didn't add the twoside option in order to only display the right page layouts
\usepackage{layouts}
\usepackage{geometry}
\begin{document}
First you see the default page layout:
\currentpage
\pagedesign
\clearpage
\newgeometry{text={155mm, 24cm}, top=25mm}
Now you can check the page layout you passed to geometry:
\currentpage
\pagedesign
\clearpage
\newgeometry{inner=16.5mm,outer=11mm,top=25mm}
and then check the possible layout you expected (I'm assuming you're using A4 paper)
\currentpage
\pagedesign
\clearpage
\end{document}


As you can see (from the first layout displayed), the default page layout for report (and the other default classes), as @egreg pointed out, does define an outer margin larger than the ineer one.

Since you jest passed to geometry the format for the body (with the text={<textwidth, textheight>} option), it doesn't change the page's default, just adjusting itself to it. In order to achieve what you expect, you must tell geometry what is the inner and outer margins lengths you expect. You can do that both with inner and outer options or with left and right (or lmargin, rmargim, check geometry doc, p. 9)

EDIT: Just updating, following @daleif's comment: It's considered good typographical practice to use larger outer margins and smaller spines — for the sake of tradition or just to provide the reader a space for personal notes. There's a a wonderfully complete answer explaining that, by Yannis Lazarides (Actually, that question is closely related to yours).

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The following helped me out, I simply swapped the margins of the geometry package \usepackage[a4paper,inner=3.5cm,outer=2.5cm]{geometry} Clearly, LaTeX is sometime easier than it seems... Clearly, a beginner as me thinks too difficult – significant Mar 12 '12 at 14:30

The following helped me out, I simply swapped the margins of the geometry package

\usepackage[a4paper,inner=3.5cm,outer=2.5cm]{geometry}


Clearly, LaTeX is sometime easier than it seems... especially for a beginner as me

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I would still say: don't. The outer margin should be bigger than the inner. Just see almost any textbook – daleif Mar 13 '12 at 9:38
@daleif can you explain this? I need some extra room for the folding space? – significant Mar 14 '12 at 10:55