Using MATA to create a PDF, how to set the Page Size (correctly)?

[ericmelse]

Hi, in Stata 14, it is now possible to create a PDF using mata, something I appreciate very much.
But, I am struggling to get the 'basics' to work. For example, with this code, from the documentation:

mata:
pdf = PdfDocument()

p = PdfParagraph()
p.addString("This is our first example of a paragraph. ")
p.addString("Let's add another sentence. ")
p.addString("Now we will conclude our first paragraph.")
pdf.addParagraph(p)

pdf.save("WorkingExample1.pdf")
pdf.close()
* clean up
mata drop p
mata drop pdf
end

Mata does create a PDF in the current working directory. This is straightforward.
So, now I want to set some document specifics, like the page size, which requires the PdfDocument class command setPageSize(sz)which I have coded as:

pdf.setPageSize(A4)

mata:
pdf = PdfDocument()

p = PdfParagraph()
p.addString("This is our first example of a paragraph. ")
p.addString("Let's add another sentence. ")
p.addString("Now we will conclude our first paragraph.")
pdf.addParagraph(p)

pdf.setPageSize(A4)
pdf.save("WorkingExample1.pdf")
pdf.close()
* clean up
mata drop p
mata drop pdf
end

But this results in an error:
<istmt>: 3499 A4 not found
(5 lines skipped)

Does anyone know what goes wrong here, or if am not correctly coding?

Best regards,
Eric

{Note that I posted this question earlier but in the wrong Forum}

[ericmelse]

Note that the manual states: setPageSize(sz) sets the page size of the PDF file. The possible values for size are Letter, Legal, A3, A4, A5, B4, and B5.
I tried:

setPageSize("A4")

but that also results in an error:
invalid expression
(2 lines skipped

[William Lisowski]

The "pdf." prefix is necessary to identify the object you created using PdfDocument to which setPageSize is to be applied.

pdf.setPageSize("A4")

[ericmelse]

Dear William,

Yes, I was incomplete. However, this code still results in an error

mata:
pdf = PdfDocument()

p = PdfParagraph()
p.addString("This is our first example of a paragraph. ")
p.addString("Let's add another sentence. ")
p.addString("Now we will conclude our first paragraph.")
pdf.addParagraph(p)

pdf.setPageSize("A4")
pdf.save("WorkingExample1.pdf")
pdf.close()
* clean up
mata drop p
mata drop pdf
end

invalid expression
(2 lines skipped)

[Hua Peng (StataCorp)]

The error is caused by the line

* clean up

, change the line to

// clean up

should fix the problem. Since Mata uses "*a" for variable a of the pointer type, using "*" to start a comment line is not valid in Mata.

[ericmelse]

Dear Hua (and William), thank you for pointing this out to me! The code works just fine now.