Atlantis margins "Page settings" -- user override?

[jimminy]

Is it possible to override a document's margin settings? I am familiar with Atlantis' "File | Page settings... | Margins" dialog and the role of the "Normal.rtf" file, but that's not the functionality I'm looking for. I would like to be able to specify print margins in Atlantis that would conditionally override the margin settings which might be found in a .rtf document created by another word processor.

For example, my WordPad (MS Windows XP) seems to completely ignore margin settings embedded in an .rtf file created with Atlantis-- the "File | Page Setup... | Margins" settings in WordPad are independent of any document and have ultimate say over margins on all pages WordPad prints. At first, this would not seem to be particularly admirable behavior by WordPad, but it has the virtue that, since most .rtf documents received from outside sources don't *require* specific margin settings, it works the way I want it to and thus simplify things for me-- like most users, I have a standing preference for top, bottom, and side margin sizes, and all documents I print from WordPad have that look without my having to tweak the settings in any random incoming .rtf file.

From looking at the Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification, version 1.6, it seems that there is a default set of margin sizes:
\margl = 1800 twips => left margin = 1.25 inches
\margr = 1800 twips => right margin = 1.25 inches
\margt = 14400 twips => top margin = 1.00 inches
\margb = 14400 twips => bottom margin = 1.00 inches
(1 twip = 1/20 point; 72 points = 1 inch)

Notably, if I create an .rtf document with WordPad, save it, and open it with Atlantis, these above values are the margin settings that Atlantis shows for the document under File | Page settings...", even though my WordPad margin settings were wildly different. I can't tell whether:
1) WordPad is writing these RTF version 1.6 default margin values into the .rtf file it saves, or
2) WordPad writes no margin values into the .rtf file it saves, and Atlantis, seeing no values, assigns the defaults.
My guess is that case (2) above is what's happening.
=> Question #1: Does Atlantis assign the default RTF v1.6 margins if it opens a document and finds no margin settings?

=> Question #2: Does Atlantis always explicity write margin values anytime it saves an .rtf file?


With the foregoing background, here is my proposal: I would like the user to be able to define a set of "global" margin values (top, bottom, and side) for .rtf files. If Atlantis opens an .rtf file and finds in the document *no* margin values or the RTF v1.6 *default* margin values, it would instead employ the user's global settings. In either of the two cases, the incoming .rtf document carries no strong preference for margins, so Atlantis should assert the user's own preferences automatically. Perhaps Atlantis could have a checkbox to *force* the user's global settings (with an optional warning and allow/deny choice on each event) even if the incoming .rtf file does carry explicit, non-default margin settings.

Taking this further, with regard to saving margin values in an .rtf file, Atlantis would keep track of whether the incoming file had margin settings. If it had none or RTF v1.6 default values, Atlantis would *not* write any values. (Again, a checkbox option could force the writing of margin values always.)

Does this functionality sound like a useful addition to Atlantis? (Assuming there's not a way to accomplish this already.)

[admin]

There is no such thing as page settings in WordPad just because there are no pages in WordPad, and there is no "Page Layout" view mode in WordPad. You know that WordPad is not a WYSIWYG text processing application.
What you see in the "File | Page Setup..." dialog of WordPad is just a set of proprietary settings of WordPad unrelated to any document file. When you print anything in WordPad, obviously the document content has to be paginated in some way. This is why WordPad has this window with "page settings". They are used to (internally) paginate the document before printing.

From looking at the Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification, version 1.6, it seems that there is a default set of margin sizes

Yes, correct.

2) WordPad writes no margin values into the .rtf file it saves, and Atlantis, seeing no values, assigns the defaults. My guess is that case (2) above is what's happening.

Yes, MS WordPad neither reads nor writes any page settings from/to RTF documents. As I said above, WordPad simply does not have page settings as such. The "File | Page Setup..." dialog of WordPad is a completely unrelated thing.

=> Question #1: Does Atlantis assign the default RTF v1.6 margins if it opens a document and finds no margin settings?
=> Question #2: Does Atlantis always explicity write margin values anytime it saves an .rtf file?

Yes to both questions. But an RTF document can contain multiple sets of page margins if there are multiple sections in this document.

I would like the user to be able to define a set of "global" margin values (top, bottom, and side) for .rtf files.

Sorry, but this will not be possible. There is a specification saying how an RTF reader is supposed to act in cases when page settings are omitted in a document file. Here is an excerpt from the "Document Formatting Properties" section of the RTF specification:

For omitted control words, RTF uses the default values.

When an RTF software generates an RTF file, default values can be omitted. But since not every RTF reader is fully compliant with the RTF specification, Atlantis always saves default values for page settings.

By the way, did you know that you can transfer page settings between documents:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en ... 2.htm#toc4