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Class and package options

In LaTeX 2.09, only document styles could have options such as twoside or draft. In LaTeX2e, both classes and packages are allowed to have options. For example, to specify a two-sided article with graphics using the dvips driver, you write:

   \documentclass[twoside]{article}
   \usepackage[dvips]{graphics}
It is possible for packages to share common options. For example, you could, in addition, load the color package by specifying:
   \documentclass[twoside]{article}
   \usepackage[dvips]{graphics}
   \usepackage[dvips]{color}
But because \usepackage allows more than one package to be listed, this can be shortened to:
   \documentclass[twoside]{article}
   \usepackage[dvips]{graphics,color}
In addition, packages will also use each option given to the \documentclass command (if they know what to do with it), so you could also write:
   \documentclass[twoside,dvips]{article}
   \usepackage{graphics,color}
Class and package options are covered in more detail in The LaTeX Companion and in LaTeX2e for Class and Package Writers.



Rainer Schoepf
Thu Jan 8 11:53:27 MET 1998