Btukfyl

I've got something like the following:

documentclass[tikz]{standalone}% Does not support leap years. 



usepackage{tikz}



usepackage[paperwidth=12cm, paperheight=25cm, margin=0cm]{geometry} 



    newcommand{printdots}[1]{

        begin{tikzpicture}[

            x=1cm,

            y=1cm,

            xscale = 1,

            yscale=1,

        ]



        %Draw dots

        foreach y in {1, 1.5, ..., 24} {    

        foreach x in {1, 1.5, ..., 11} {

            fill[color=black] (x,y) circle (0.05);  

        } 

    }



        end{tikzpicture}%

    } 



begin{document}

    foreach n in {1,...,2}{%

        printdots

    }

end{document}

i.e. I'd like to make a 12x15cm standalone, with 2 pages. On each page, I'd like to print dots 0.5cm apart, starting 1cm from the edge.

(Eventually, I'd like to do more complex things, so if there's an easier way to print dots, that probably won't solve my problem).

However, when I compile this, it ends up with a large space on the right and bottom, missing dots on the top and left.
In other words, the tikz coordinates aren't matching the page coordinates.

Is there any way to make my Tikz coordinates exactly match the page coordinates in cm? Basically, I want to tell tikz not to automatically scale the picture at all based on what I have in it.

I've seen lots of tikz posts on attaching specific nodes to a page position, but not how to align the coordinates with the page position.

Now that I've written the answer, I see @Zarko's comment. I agree with him that one should better use article (or something of this sort) to create a multipage document.

documentclass{article}% Does not support leap years. 

usepackage{tikz}

usepackage{eso-pic}



usepackage[paperwidth=12cm, paperheight=25cm, margin=0cm]{geometry} 

AddToShipoutPictureBG{%

begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture,

            x=1cm,

            y=1cm,

            xscale = 1,

            yscale=1,

        ]



        %Draw dots

        foreach y in {1, 1.5, ..., 24} {    

        foreach x in {1, 1.5, ..., 11} {

            fill[color=black] ([xshift=x*1cm,yshift=y*1cm]current page.south

            west) circle (0.05);  

        } 

    }

end{tikzpicture}}



begin{document}

~

clearpage

~

end{document}

Using other than the standalone class frees you from many limitations. You can use a normal article class with the powerful pic construct from tikz. You can place the dots picture on any page you want without interfering with the page content using the [overlay, remember picture] option as noted out by @Zarko. The new macro drawdots defined below conveniently adds the dots to any page.

documentclass{article} 

usepackage{tikz}

usepackage[paperwidth=12cm, paperheight=25cm, margin=0cm]{geometry} 



tikzset{

    mydots/.pic = {

        foreach y in {0, .5, ..., 23}    

            foreach x in {0, .5, ..., 10} 

                fill[color=black] (x,y) circle (0.05);  

    }

}



newcommand{drawdots}{%

    begin{tikzpicture}[overlay, remember picture]

        pic at ([shift={(1,1)}]current page.south west) {mydots};

    end{tikzpicture}

}



begin{document}    

drawdots    

clearpage    

drawdots    

end{document}