Typesetting a subset of the MLA format (with example tex/sty)

Question

My professor has specific tweaks he wants me to do, especially with the citations. However, in attempting to make those tweaks, it seems something broke in Ryan Aycock's old MLA style, if it was even working to begin with. The symptoms:

• my footer is consistently too large, by about a half of an inch
• the font size, set in the \documentclass options to 12pt, is not 12pt (1/6in or 4.233mm), it's 9pt (1/8", or 3.125mm).
• There is space between two of the bibliography entries

Here is the example pdf, and a minimal working example:

sample document file, style file, sample bibliography, BBX File, CBX file

I have scoured the internet trying to figure this out, but the geometry docs are a bit confusing and at this point I just don't have time to keep trying to work this out. Any suggestions?

Edit: I was measuring my fonts incorrectly (didn't count descenders). The other issues remain.

Answer 1

The style file you're using is really a bit of a mess. To make things easier to understand, I've included all of it in the test document. I've deleted all of the margins related code and replaced it with simply \usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}. I've also replaced the mathptmx package with newtxtext for an up to date Times Roman font. If you also need math support, also load newtxmath.

If you want to fix the package, replace all the \usepackage commands with \RequirePackage. The hyperref package likes to be loaded after most other packages, so you should load it last in the package and load your package after any other document packages you load.

The bibliography problem is solved by changing the entry type of your RightInTwo entry from misc to something else. I used unpublished as an example.

% !TEX TS-program = pdflatexmk

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{graphicx}

%\usepackage{my-mla-pkg}

%%%%% This is the code that is currently in the package %%%%
\usepackage{newtxtext}   % Times New Roman font
\pagestyle{headings}

\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}

\usepackage{setspace}    
\doublespacing

%
%   Last name and page number on every page
%
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\fancypagestyle{norule}{ %
    \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
    \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
  }
  \fancyhf{}
\pagestyle{headings}
\pagestyle{norule}

\usepackage{url}

% Bibliography/Works Cited Settings
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes, xpatch}
\usepackage[backend=biber,bibstyle=my-mla,citestyle=my-mla,annotation=true]{biblatex}

% Hyperref
\usepackage[bookmarksnumbered]{hyperref} % hyperref should be loaded last.

\setlength{\parindent}{0.5in}

%   MLA environment
\newenvironment{mla}[6]{ \setcounter{page}{1} \fancyhead[RO]{#2{}\thepage}
  \raggedright #1\ #2 \\
  Professor #3 \\
  #4 \\
  #5 \\
  \centering #6 \\
  \frenchspacing\raggedright\setlength{\parindent}{.5in}{ \nonfrenchspacing} }

%
%   Block quote environment
%
\newenvironment{blocks}{\begin{quote} \linespread{1} \small
    \normalsize}{\end{quote} \linespread{2} \small \normalsize}
\newenvironment{blockm}{\begin{quotation} \linespread{1} \small
    \normalsize}{\end{quotation} \linespread{2} \small \normalsize}

%  
%   Russ Ault's mla quote environment
%   
\newenvironment{mlaquote}{\list{}{\leftmargin=1in}\item[]}{\endlist}
\newenvironment{mlaquotation}{\list{}{\leftmargin=1in}\item[]\parindent=0.5in}{\endlist}

%%%% End of package code


\newcommand{\firstname}{m00n }
\newcommand{\lastname}{aspookyghosty }
\newcommand{\prof}{my english prof}
\newcommand{\class}{english class}

\DeclareFieldFormat{postnote}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{multipostnote}{#1}
% enable annotations
\usepackage{blindtext}
\defbibheading{bibliography}{\centering Works Cited}
\author{\firstname \lastname}
\addbibresource{frankencrit-citations.bib}


\begin{document}
\begin{mla}{\firstname}{\lastname}{\prof}{\class}{\today}{MinimalWorkingExample}
  This is a minimal working example.
  \Blindtext
  \nocite{*}
  \newpage
  \printbibliography
\end{mla}
\end{document}