Page Category Keys

page

The keys in the page category control the size, margins, and background of the pages in a document (i.e., canvas). We recommended that you define this category before all other categories.

The background of the title page can be styled independently of other pages. See Title Page and Title Page Category Keys for details.
Key Value Type Example

background-color

Color
(default: 'FFFFFF')

 
page:
  background-color: #FEFEFE

background-image

image macro | path
(default: not set)

 
page:
  background-image: image:page-bg.png[]

background-image-(recto|verso)

image macro | path
(default: not set)

 
page:
  background-image:
    recto: image:page-bg-recto.png[]
    verso: image:page-bg-verso.png[]

columns

Integer
(default: not set)

 
page:
  columns: 2

column-gap

Measurement
(default: $base-font-size)

 
page:
  columns: 2
  columns-gap: 12

foreground-image

image macro | path
(default: not set)

 
page:
  foreground-image: image:watermark.svg[]

initial-zoom

Fit | FitH | FitV
(default: FitH)

 
page:
  initial-zoom: Fit

layout

landscape | portrait
(default: portrait)

 
page:
  layout: landscape

margin

Measurement | Measurement[top,right,bottom,left]
(default: 36)

 
page:
  margin: [0.5in, 0.67in, 1in, 0.67in]

margin-inner

Measurement
(default: 48)

 
page:
  margin-inner: 0.75in

margin-outer

Measurement
(default: 24)

 
page:
  margin-outer: 0.59in

mode

outline | none | thumbs | fullscreen | fullscreen outline | fullscreen none | fullscreen thumbs
(default: outline)

 
page:
  mode: fullscreen none

size

Named size | Measurement[width,height]
(default: A4)

 
page:
  size: Letter

Disable background-color

To turn off the background color for the page, set the value of the background-color key to white (i.e., #FFFFFF). The color keyword transparent is not recognized in this context.

Inner and outer margins

The margins for recto (right-hand, odd-numbered) and verso (left-hand, even-numbered) pages are calculated automatically from the margin-inner and margin-outer values. These margins are only used when the value prepress is assigned to the media document attribute.

The recto margin is applied to the title page if a front cover is specified. To apply the recto margin to the title page without specifying a front cover, assign the value ~ to the front-cover-image. See Cover Category Keys for information about the cover category keys.

Setting front-cover-image to ~ makes the converter acts as though a front cover is present without reserving a page for it. It essentially informs the converter that the front cover will be inserted by a separate process.

Columns

The columns are only applied to the body of a document with the article or manpage doctype. The body of the document begins after the document title and TOC, if present.

If the columns are set on the index section using the index-columns key, they will be ignored when page-columns is set.

page-numbering

The key in the page-numbering category controls where the integer (1-based) page numbering begins.

Key Value Type Example

start-at

Start page | Integer
(default: body)

 
page:
  numbering:
    start-at: cover

See Starting integer page numbering for more information about the start-at key, its values, and their requirements.