How to use locale(1) to set default paper size?

[Gary Jennejohn]

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 18:20:43 +0400
Gleb Popov <arrowd at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 6:04 PM Gary Jennejohn <gljennjohn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 15:07:22 +0400
> > Gleb Popov <arrowd at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >  
> > > Hello hackers@
> > >
> > > When I launch LibreOffice Writer, the default page size is set to  
> > "Letter".  
> > > From what I read on Internets, the canonical way to set default paper  
> > size  
> > > is via locale(1). Many sites propose setting LC_PAPER env var to
> > > ru_RU.UTF-8 to get "A4" as default size.
> > >
> > > On FreeBSD, however, running `locale -ck` doesn't show a category for  
> > paper  
> > > size and setting LC_PAPER variable doesn't seem to work for LibreOffice.
> > >
> > > Any ideas what can be done about that?
> > >  
> >
> > Click on Format->Page and a window will pop up.  Open the Page tab
> > and you can set the size to A4.
> >
> > LibreOffice should save that it when you click on OK.
> >  
> 
> This sets it for current file only. If I close Writer, open it and then
> create a new document, it gets back to "Letter".
> 
> 
> > My size was set automatically to A4 because I already had a config
> > file from 2008 laying around in my home directory with that setting.
> >  
> 
> IIRC, LibreOffice config is a XML file. Can you find relevant tag and share
> it with me, please?
> 

I can't find any xml files anywhere, including under /usr/local,
which contain A4 (or a4) or combinations with PAGE/page at all.

I played around a little, changing the page size, and noticed
that ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/pack/config/standard.pack
changed.

But this is a Git pack according to /usr/bin/file and I have no idea
how to read its contents.

But I suspect that libreoffice does not use a global page size
but wants to set it for each document.  I say that because, when
I went from A4 to Letter, libreoffice considered that the
document had been changed and wanted me to save it, even though
it was just a blank page.

I have no idea why libreoffice starts with A4 pages for me.

-- 
Gary Jennejohn