Package keyval Error: No value specified for margin. -- error from geometry

Question

I'm using a resume template from the following URL: (res9b) to be exact. http://rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/

The problem is that the resume template doesn't include a header. If I simply add a new header, the alignment isn't correct. The header overwrites the first line of the page. So I need a way to align the page lower than the footer. I decided to use the geometry package that was recommended here on a similar post.

\usepackage{geometry}
\def\name{First Last}

\geometry{
    top=0.5in,            
    inner=0.5in,
    outer=0.5in,
    bottom=0.5in,
    headheight=3ex,      
    headsep=2ex,         
 }

 \pagestyle{myheadings}
 \markright{\name}
 \thispagestyle{empty}
 ....

But when I compile it, I get this error:

! Package keyval Error: No value specified for margin.

See the keyval package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
...                                              

l.848 \ProcessOptionsKV[c]{Gm}
                          %

It looks like the problem has something to do with the res.cls file.

\documentclass[line,margin]{res}

Could that be causing that error somehow? How do I fix this error? I like the format of this resume package and would like to keep it if possible.

Answer 1

The global margin option is passed to the geometry package (like all global options are passed to all packages). And geometry needs this option to have an argument.

To fix this either try to add a margin=<value> option to the geometry package to overwrite the global one or to rename the margin option of the class to something else.

Another alternative is to delete the global options, i.e. put the following after the \documentclass. The < > part marks a place which should be filled out, not taken verbatim.

\makeatletter
\def\@classoptionslist{<class options except `margin` OR empty>}
\makeatother

Answer 2

I just tried another way, and it works quite well! You can download the new cls file here

Then replace the first line:

\documentclass[line,margin]{res}

to:

\documentclass[line,mm]{res}

Then you can use the geometry package as you like.

Since the problem is caused by the fact that geometry will use global margin too, I renamed the margin option in res.cls to mm.