[texhax] TeX question

[Robby Seal]

I was wondering if you could help with a problem I have.  I am trying to write a LaTeX2e document template where the first page is to be printed on pre-printed, headed paper, and subsequent pages are to be printed on plain paper.  Thus the margin / text indent of the first page is different to all the subsequent ones, as the pre-printed paper has writing all down the left hand side of the page.

The main problem I have is that I can't know how many lines will appear on the first page or where LaTeX will break the page, as I'm just writing a template and different content will be added by different users.  So there's no way of knowing how many lines will appear on any given first page in advance.  Ideally it needs to work without further user intervention (i.e. them forcing a page break, or specifying lines until the page break) as it's also going to be used in an automated system where content will be added in by a program.

Re-setting the margins does not seem to work (as they appear to be set once for all), and the main other solution I've tried (using a 'blank' wrapfig where the preprinting was) can leave one or more lines either too far to the left on the first page, or still indented (often up to the end of the paragraph over which the page breaks) on the second.  This was the only way I could find of having a paragraph with that sort of varied indent.

I would have thought there would be a solution to this as it doesn't seem like an unusual request (or rather, something that someone else might have wanted to do), but I can't seem to find one anywhere.  Do you have any thoughts on how I might achieve this effect?  Or could you point me in the direction of someone who might be able to help?

Many thanks,

Robby Seal.