marginnote + pagenumbering = ⚡

Question

Consider the following code (earlier, I considered it minimal, at least on my machine, but see the answer of @daleif)

\documentclass{svmono}
\usepackage[paperwidth=168mm,paperheight=240mm,height=210mm,width=144mm,includehead=true,includemp=true,showframe]{geometry}%%% That's what Springer sometimes wants
\usepackage{newtxtext}%%% They want times
\usepackage{marginnote}
\usepackage{todonotes}%%% For the draft version
\begin{document}
FOO
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\todo[inline]{\footnotesize FOO}
\begin{itemize}
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \begin{itemize}
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \end{itemize}
  \begin{enumerate}
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR
  \end{enumerate}
\item FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO BAR FOO
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\item line
\end{itemize}
\pagenumbering{roman}
\newpage\strut
\vspace{122ex}
\begin{tabbing}
  The last line of tabbing. The margin note is not at the right place:\marginnote{MARGIN NOTE}
\end{tabbing}
\end{document}

Here, svmono is Springer's book class available from https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/manuscript-preparation/5636 in version 5.5. Marginnote has been tested in versions 1.3 and 1.4.

In the output produced by latex (yes, I re-run it MANY times) the last page looks wrong:

Particularly, the argument of \marginnote is NOT in the margin. You get the same overlap after compiling with pdflatex. The same issue occurs if you replace the tabbing environment by, say, \[The last line of tabbing. The margin note is not at the right place:\marginnote{MARGIN NOTE}\]. Any help? Any bugfix?

The author of maginnote has not been very helpful so far.

Concerning whether this bug occurs with article in place of svmono, see the answer of @daleif.

Answer 1

To recap, the issue here is not related to svmono or geometry, the culprit is \pagenumbering and the twoside option (which svmono loads).

In marginnote there is a separate page counter added to the output routine. It supports twoside just fine, under the assumption that that the page layout goes right hand/odd page layout then a left hand/even page layout etc, but in this example

\begin{document}
 text, sheet 1
 \newpage
 text, sheet 2
 \pagenumbering{arabic} 
 \newpage
 text, sheet 3
 ...

On sheet 2, \pagenumering{arabic} changes the page number display to numbers (which it already was), but more importantly resets the page counter to 1.

This means that in latex terms sheet 1 and sheet 2 will both be odd pages and will get an odd page layout.

So now we have odd, odd, even, odd, even, which is not what the marginnote algorithm is assuming

Reccomendation: make sure any use of \pagenumbering, either direct or indirect (for example through \frontmatter) is done on an odd page, aka insert a \cleardoublepage before if necessary.

From earlier:

Too long for a comment, it is not related to svmono, here is a much smaller MWE:

%\documentclass{svmono}
\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage[
paperwidth=168mm,
paperheight=240mm,
%height=210mm,
%width=144mm,
textwidth=117mm,
textheight=191mm,
includehead=true,includemp=true,showframe]{geometry}

\marginparwidth=3cm
\usepackage{marginnote}
\begin{document}
F

\newpage

F

\pagenumbering{arabic}
\newpage\strut
\vspace{122ex}
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF%
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF%
\marginnote{MARGIN NOTE}
\end{document}

My guess is that we are too close to a page break so the checking mechanism in marginnote gets the page wrong. If you place sheet 2 just over sheet 3, you'll see the the note is placed correctly but for the margin on the preceeding page.

Note that the effect goes way if you remove \pagenumbering so I'm guessing that also have something to do with it.

Oh, bugger, marginnote has its own counter that keeps track of the sheet we are on. It just counts along in the output routine. Note we are in twoside mode, marginnote can handle that, but because of the \pageenumbering we now have two consecutive right hand pages, and that confuses the placement algorithm.

Here is an even shorter MWE:

%\documentclass{svmono}
\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{marginnote}
\marginparwidth=3cm
\begin{document}
F

\newpage

F

\pagenumbering{arabic}
\newpage

\noindent
\rule{\textwidth}{1pt}%
\marginnote{MARGIN NOTE}
\end{document}

My suggestion: don't use \pagenumbering directly, for a book you should use \frontmatter and \mainmatter instead.

If you use \pagenumberingthen make sure to combine it with \cleardoublepage (before it), to ensure that the new page "1" is on a right hand page.