Generating PDF Files

If you need additional help making your pdfs, please contact Helpdesk.

Check your page size | Page size in software settings | Make pdf from latex | Prob with ds9 figures

SJ requirements

The Call for Proposals specifies that all science justification and team expertise experience files meet the following requirements:

US Letter sized sheet
1 inch margins

Additionally it is recommended that the text in any science justification meet the following guidelines:

No more than 15 characters per inch (horizontally)
No more than 6 lines per inch (vertically)

The CXC provides a LaTeX science justification template and a Team Expertise template that meet all requirements, provided the LaTeX files are properly converted to pdf.

Confirming Page Size

You should check the page dimensions of your pdf file before uploading to RPS to make sure your file is US Letter sized (8.5 x 11 in, 215.9 mm x 279.4 mm) and not A4 (8.27in x 11.69 in, 210 x 297 mm) or any other sized page.

Three ways to check page size

In Adobe Reader, the information can be found under File->Properties in the "Page Size" field of the Description tab.
In Apple's Preview software, it can be found under Tools->Show Inspector in the "Page Size" field of the General Information tab.
If you have the command-line tool pdfinfo, you should check the "Page Size" value returned by: pdfinfo filename.pdf

Configuring US Letter Sized Pages

Please be advised that you need to properly configure both dvips and ps2pdf such that they produce letter sized documents, not A4.

Do not assume your system is properly configured. If your pdf margins aren't a consistent 1 inch on all sides, it is likely that either dvips or ps2pdf is configured to produce A4 by default, not that you have an error in the .tex file.

Warning about Sofware Choice

Some users have reported issues generating the correct page size using software other than what is recommended below. If you are not using the method described on this page to create your pdf files, then it is especially important that you confirm your page size before you submit your proposal.

If you use pdflatex, then your page size should be correct as long as you do not deviate from the settings used in our templates.

If you believe dvips is creating A4, the most reliable method to change it is to change the underlying configuration file with:

texconfig dvips paper letter
(this can be reversed after you make your SJ by replacing "letter" with "A4")

Some versions of dvips will allow you to set the paper size in the command, but be aware that some versions ignore it:

dvips -Ppdf -G0 -t letter -o sj_file.ps sj_file.dvi

If you believe ps2pdf is creating A4, you can change it with the following:

ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=letter sj_file.ps sj_file.pdf

Converting LaTeX to PDF

If you use LaTeX for your PDF scientific justification, we recommend one of the two methods below to create a PDF that is crisp and readable for either screen viewing or printing.

Convert directly to pdf (recommended)

Use a latex installation which allows you to create PDF files directly from the .tex file (e.g. pdftex/pdflatex):

pdflatex sj_file.tex

The paper size of a pdf generated by pdflatex is determined by the page dimensions given in the .tex file.

Some installations of pdftex do not allow you to include postscript figures. In this case you might use the method below.

Convert from tex to dvi to ps to pdf

Use ps2pdf (preferably version 1.4 or higher) to convert a postscript file to PDF.

latex file.tex
dvips -Ppdf -G0 -o sj_file.ps sj_file.dvi
ps2pdf sj_file.ps sj_file.pdf

Errors displaying DS9 figures

If you experience errors when displaying figures you produced with DS9:

Solution: Remake figure in DS9 and save as Postscript Level 1.

In the Print window choose Level 1 under the Postscript heading. At this point you should re-LaTeX your SJ following the directions above.