What is the easiest way to get borders around a page in LaTeX?

Question

I want my document to have borders in all pages. I imagine I can do that using TikZ, but is there an easier way to do it?

I also asked this question here, but as the main question was something else, this one problem got ignored (probably the use of the word "margin" rather than "border" did not help my case).

Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

Memoir class has option showtrims and commands \trimFrame, \settrimmedsize, \settrims. Example:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper,showtrims]{memoir}
\trimFrame  
\settrimmedsize{210mm}{145mm}{*} 
\settrims{20mm}{34mm}

Answer 2

You're right that it can be done with TikZ, but it's not necessary to load in the whole of TikZ to get the bits required for this. The part that is needed is pgfpages. You can do a lot of page manipulation with this package, but here's some to get you started:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgf}
\usepackage{pgfpages}

\pgfpagesdeclarelayout{boxed}
{
  \edef\pgfpageoptionborder{0pt}
}
{
  \pgfpagesphysicalpageoptions
  {%
    logical pages=1,%
  }
  \pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}
  {
    border code=\pgfsetlinewidth{2pt}\pgfstroke,%
    border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
    resized width=.95\pgfphysicalwidth,%
    resized height=.95\pgfphysicalheight,%
    center=\pgfpoint{.5\pgfphysicalwidth}{.5\pgfphysicalheight}%
  }%
}

\pgfpagesuselayout{boxed}
\begin{document}

Something simple

\end{document}

Of course, if you're going to use the same layout again and again, put it in a separate style file and \usepackage{mylayouts} in each document.

Note: the package pgf is only needed to provide the command \pgfstroke. As all this does is draw a line, it may be possible to remove this in favour of a \rule of some sort.

Answer 3

I think the easiest way would be to use the crop package. Tikz is not exactly the easiest way, but with tikzpagenodes you can do fancy things.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{tikzpagenodes}
\usepackage{scrlayer-scrpage}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\pagestyle{scrheadings}


\newcommand{\jamanta}{\tikz[remember picture,overlay] 
    \draw [blue,line width=2mm]
    (current page.south west)
    rectangle
    (current page.north east)
    ;}

\newcommand{\greenborders}{\tikz[remember picture,overlay] \draw [green]
    (current page text area.south west)
    rectangle
    (current page text area.north east)
    ;}

\chead[\jamanta]{\jamanta} % for page borders

%\chead[\greenborders]{\greenborders} %for margin borders

\begin{document}


\section{A}
\lipsum[1-10]
\section{B}
\lipsum[1-10]

\end{document}

Answer 4

The answer provided by Stefan Kottwitz helped me. I wanted to add a working example for easy reference based on his suggestion of using the crop package. My example may need improvement.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{geometry} 
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage[none]{hyphenat}
\geometry{paperwidth=2in, paperheight=4in, margin=2em, bottom=1.5em, nohead}
\usepackage[center,dvips,frame]{crop}
\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}
\doublespacing \noindent Hello, world, this is my Pinterest message.
% Add a blank line

\vspace{0.2in}
\noindent Choose your words with care because you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.
% Add a blank line

\vspace{0.3in}
\noindent \footnotesize Made with \normalsize \LaTeX

\end{document}

Answer 5

A box around your document: it sounds like a frame around your logical page on a bigger paper size. This can be done using the crop package.

Answer 6

Actually though you suggest you want something easier then TikZ, doing it with that is not so hard. Here is the most important part. I am really only posting this because this was the first Google result I found, but I was not happy with the results. This is what I am using now.

\usepackage[all]{background}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc} 
\usepackage{ifoddpage}
\usepackage{changepage}
\strictpagecheck

\newcommand*{\bordersp}{0.125in}

\newcommand{\MyTikzBoarder}{%
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay,draw=red]
\checkoddpage
\ifoddpage
    \draw (0.75in-\bordersp,-0.5in+\bordersp) -- (\textwidth+0.75in+\bordersp,-0.5in+\bordersp) -- (\textwidth+0.75in+\bordersp,-\textheight-0.5in-\headheight-\headsep-\bordersp) -- (0.75in-\bordersp,-\textheight-0.5in-\headheight-\headsep-\bordersp) -- cycle;
\else
    \draw (0.5in-\bordersp,-0.5in+\bordersp) -- (\textwidth+0.5in+\bordersp,-0.5in+\bordersp) -- (\textwidth+0.5in+\bordersp,-\textheight-0.5in-\headheight-\headsep-\bordersp) -- (0.5in-\bordersp,-\textheight-0.5in-\headheight-\headsep-\bordersp) -- cycle;
\fi
 \end{tikzpicture}
}

\SetBgContents{\MyTikzBoarder}% Set tikz picture

\SetBgPosition{current page.north west}% Select location
\SetBgOpacity{1.0}
\SetBgAngle{0.0}
\SetBgScale{1.0}

Answer 7

For those who are not using the memoirs document class, and also need to use table of contents. I would suggest the use of the background package along with the calc library in tikz. The inclusion of tikz allows you to have a lot more options including rounded corners (which I personally love).

I have come to this solution after trying out multiple options, including pgfpages which actually squeezes your page inside instead of adding borders. This leads to displacement of toc links.

\usepackage{background}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\SetBgScale{1}
\SetBgAngle{0}
\SetBgColor{black}
\SetBgContents{
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
    \draw [line width=1pt,rounded corners=4pt,]
        ($ (current page.north west) + (2cm,-2cm) $)
        rectangle
        ($ (current page.south east) + (-2cm,2cm) $);
\end{tikzpicture}}

I did struggle a lot with this and this seems like the easiest way to have margins, hope it helps :)

The following is the output image for a page from my document