Two margin woes

Question

I have two problems with my margins. One is that when I print the margins, I can't seem to get them to come out properly. I have

\usepackage[top = 1in, bottom = 1in, left = 1.5in, right = 1in]{geometry}

at the top of the document, and it looks right when it's on the screen, but it never seems to come out properly when I print.

Also, I need to change it so that on pages where I start a new section it makes the top margin be two inches. Does anyone know how to do these things?

Answer 1

According to the comments, the first problem was solved simply by turning off page scaling on Acrobat Reader (as suggested by JLDiaz).

For your second question, you can use the titlesec package; defining \sectionbreak to be \clearpage, you can make \section to automatically start a new page, and redefining \section with the help of \titleformat you can add the required additional vertical space before the titles. A little example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[top = 1in, bottom = 1in, left = 1.5in, right = 1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\newcommand\sectionbreak{\clearpage}
\titleformat{\section}
  {\vspace*{1in}\normalfont\Large\bfseries}{\thesection}{1em}{}

\begin{document}

\section{Test Section One}
\lipsum[1-12]
\section{Test Section Two}
\lipsum[1-12]

\end{document}

Without using the titlesec package, you can redefine \section (as implemented in article.cls) to add \clearpage (to start a new page) and \vspace*{1in} (to add the required extra vertical space). Here's an example showing the required redefinition:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[top = 1in, bottom = 1in, left = 1.5in, right = 1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\makeatletter
\renewcommand\section{\clearpage\vspace*{1in}\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%
                                   {0ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                   {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
                                   {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\section{Test Section One}
\lipsum[1-12]
\section{Test Section Two}
\lipsum[1-12]

\end{document}

The above examples will change the behaviour for all \section commands in the document; if the changes are moved from the preamble to the body, the changes will only apply from the point the code appears on (and you can restore the original definition if needed at some latter point). In the following example. the first and fourth sections behave as the default ones, but the second and third sections start on their own page and add additional vertical space:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[top = 1in, bottom = 1in, left = 1.5in, right = 1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\title{The Title}
\author{The Author}

\begin{document}

\maketitle
\section{Introduction}
\lipsum[1-12]

% change to \section
\makeatletter
\renewcommand\section{\clearpage\vspace*{1in}\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%
                                   {0ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                   {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
                                   {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}}
\makeatother
\section{Test Modified Section One}
\lipsum[1-12]
\section{Test Modified Section Two}
\lipsum[1-12]

% restore the original meaning of \section
\makeatletter
\renewcommand\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%
                                   {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                   {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
                                   {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}}
\makeatother
\section{A Test Regular Section}
\lipsum[2]

\end{document}

Of course, if these changes are to be used many times, the use of wrapping newly defined commands would simplify the writing.