Thanks for the answers. After playing around the whole evening yesterday incl. reading docs to xkeyval I'm still confused how to export the textheight defined in the style file to a useable length. I've managed to access \pd@@textheight with this construct: \makeatletter \setlenght{\textareaheight}{\pd@@textheight} \makeatother but it seems that this variable - or key, following my understandings of xkeyval - is set only localy inside the style file. I need this value because the text-area of my wideslide and slide enviroments differ in height, and I want to give users the opportunity to draw a pspicture with size (\textwidth x \textareaheight) for freely placing things via \rput commands using positioning like ( 0.5\textwidth x 0.8\textareaheight). Is there a way to access this value defined in my style file? Thanks for your patience ! Greetings Björn Hendri Adriaens wrote: >> Anyway, is there a way to access the defined textheight value (used in >> many powerdot-styles) directly? Trying the \pd@@textheight thing does >> not work. > > See here: > http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=atsigns > > -Hendri. -- ------------------------------ Dipl.-Ing. Björn Brodersen MSc TU Braunschweig Institut für Statik Beethovenstr. 51 38106 Braunschweig Tel.: 0531 / 391 - 3670