Memoir and geometry

Question

I am using geometry with memoir.

I use it to change the margins of my document temporarily, e.g.:

....
\savegeometry{the_original_geometry}
\newgeometry{top=2.5cm, bottom=2.5cm,headsep=0cm}
....
\loadgeometry{the_original_geometry}
....

I think memoir supplies its own set of commands for adjusting margins. I looked into the documentation but I couldn't find a command that was as intuitive as those above, and that allows me to switch quickly between two types of layouts

Is there a way to do this using memoir's commands and avoid using the geometry package ?

Also, a related question: How do I get geometry or memoir to print the current values of top, bottom and headsep?

Answer 1

The best way to check all the page parameters is to use the layouts package (written by Peter Wilson the same author of memoir) and used by the class to illustrate them in the manual.

There is no notion of top, bottom, left or right as defined by geometry (they are just convenience lengths for calculations and for author inputs). Similarly memoir offers some lengths that are not available clearly in geometry, such as \trimtop etc.

top is equivalent to \uppermargin in memoir, \headsep is a LaTeX length and available in both.

The page layout parameters can all be changed using the LaTeX \setlength command. For example, to set the headsep=0pt, put this into the preamble:

\makeatletter
\setlength{\headsep}{0pt}
\makeatother

To view any dimension in a document just use the \showthe or \the macros. For example to view the headsep values use \showthe\headsep or simply \the\headsep to print it. See Page geometry discrepancies for a short macro to print all the lengths.