So, there's a property that does most of what I need, and a second that does 90% of the remainder

@prince-pdf {
  prince-pdf-open-action: zoom(fit-height);
  prince-pdf-page-layout: two-column-right;
}

two-column-right is most of my interest (book style layout.)

Zoom fit-height, however, is undesirable. The zoom isn't perfect; as you scroll through the document it drifts. Different amounts on different machines, but, on my main development machine, it's about a page every 60 pages at 8.5x11".

PDF has a different facility that I would prefer to use.

In Reader DC, if you right click the icon toolbar, and look under Show Page Display Tools, you'll see that Reader has the ability to treat this as an issue not of zoom, but rather of continuous vs discontinuous. There's an item under there, "Two Page View," which in tandem with what you currently call "two-column-right" does exactly what I want.

Does PrinceXML have a mechanism for that?

John Haugeland is http://fullof.bs/

Two page view is preferable because:

1) It's locked to pages, so there's never any off-scroll, and all the arrow keys Just Do What You Want (tm)

2) It's remarkably faster than continuous view

John Haugeland is http://fullof.bs/

Use prince-pdf-page-layout: two-page-left | two-page-right for "Two Page View". It looks like those names haven't been documented.

thanks, wang. that seems to have been exactly what i needed.

this introduced a trivial, unimportant behavioral regression into the document. i don't really care very much and will use it, but as long as i have you here, maybe you'll know what to do?

in two-column-right, the first page is aligned to the right of the document, in a column with all right pages

in two-page-right, the first page is centered between what become the pageflow columns instead

it isn't a big deal, but *shrugs*

John Haugeland is http://fullof.bs/

For whatever reason, Adobe decided to expose the difference between /PageLayout /TwoPageLeft and /TwoPageRight (in the PDF) as whether the first page should be considered a cover page or not. In Acrobat, see View > Page Display > Show Cover Page in Two Page View.