Chapter 5. FAQ
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# Chapter 5. FAQ

The purpose of this mini FAQ is to give some tips about how customizing or tweaking the PDF output.

## My images are too big. What can I do?

When an image is included via `imagedata` with no scaling attributes (e.g, width, height, contentwidth) it is its natural size that is used.

One can change individually the size of an `imagedata` by defining its attributes (see [TDG] for more details). One can also use the parameter imagedata.default.scale to apply a systematic scaling rule on every image that has no explicit attribute.

The parameter imagedata.default.scale can take:

- The default predefined value "pagebound": the image natural size is used, up to the page boundaries. That is, if an image natural width is greater than the page width its size is proportionally reduced so that it is contained in the page. The same control is done for height.

- Any combination of valid \includegraphics options. For example

  imagedata.default.scale=scale=40%

    The scale 40% is applied on the images.

  imagedata.default.scale=width=40%,height=3in

    This example is weird but shows that several options can be used. In this case the image width is 40% of the page width, and the height is fixed to 3 inches. The risk to have an anamorphous result is very high here.

## How can I have the PDF fit to height by default?

The behaviour of the PDF file when opened by a reader like Acrobat Reader can be customized with the parameter latex.hyperparam. See the section called “Description” for more details about this parameter.

To answer precisely to the question, set the parameter with the option "pdfstartview=FitV".

## How can I have all the PDF hyperlinks in blue color?

Same answer than for the previous question.

For this particular case, set the parameter with the options "linktocpage,colorlinks,linkcolor=blue,citecolor=blue,urlcolor=blue".

## How can I remove that stupid float rules?

If you wonder about this, you propably use the db2latex style. To remove the rules, you need to patch the db2latex.sty. You can:

- Simply remove the floatstyle definition for the floats for which you don't want the rules.

- Explicitely use the plain floatstyle. Note that using this explicit style does not allow to change the float title position anymore. The plain style always put the title at the bottom of the float.

## My long tables don't split in several pages. Why?

A formal table (`table` element) is put in a float, so that it can have a numbered caption and placed by tex at the best place. The limitation is that a float cannot split over several pages.

For long tables that need to split, use `informaltable` instead.

## I cannot put a table in an example.

A formal table (`table` element) is put in a float, and cannot be put in another float like an example. You can use an `informaltable` instead.

## I cannot compile my cyrillic document. Why?

A document using some characters different from the roman alphabet may face some troubles, because latex natively handles only latin1 encoding.

Try the different unicode supports provided by dblatex:

- Use the XeTeX backend, a new tex engine that natively supports Unicode characters: `dblatex -b xetex file.xml`.

- Ask for using the latex unicode support by setting the `latex.encoding`=utf8 parameter: `dblatex -P latex.encoding=utf8 file.xml`.

- Use the Passivetex extensions by setting the `latex.unicode.use`=1 parameter: `dblatex -P latex.unicode.use=1 file.xml`.

See the section called “Document Encoding” for more details.

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