Margin on the top in LaTex

Question

I am now writing a thesis which is required to have 1 and half inches on the left or binding side, and 1 inch on the other three sides.

I just have my print-out checked in the binding office and I was told the margins are not okay, especially the one on the top is not enough, a little less than 1 inch. See the figure below:

I wonder which commands are responsible for the margins on the four sides, especially for the one on the top? I provide links to two files I believe that control the layout and format of the thesis:jhu12.clo and thesis.cls.

Or instead of modifying the LaTex files, is thre some setting when printing the pdf file to control these margins on the print-out?

Thanks and regards!

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EDIT:

This is the print-out of command \layout

It shows "one inch + \voffset" for the top (the NO. 2 item). But the staff at the binding office use his ruler to show it is less than 1 inch. How to adjust the margins in LaTex then?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Look at the layout package, which prints out out a page with all of the current margin dimensions.

Answer 2

Microsoft would not let me see the contents of your files, but the icons were pretty. ;-). The top margin is usually set by ‘\topmargin‘ and it defaults to 28pt.

There is a gotcha though in that some backend drivers handled the placement of the upper left corner of the page differently. They either add or subtract an inch from the "zero" point depending on the command line parameters. This then gets differently compensated in different packages. I haven't dealt with that for 15 years now but I am not sure if it is because the fixed it or I stopped using A4 paper.