Reply: Blank pages

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Beverly Parks questioned the use of blank pages. Here's my notes:

        Blank pages waste space, no doubt about it, but if you have only a
     few in a publication, does it really make a difference? Except for our
     reports with tightly constrained page limits (e.g., 2, 4 or 8 pages),
     we usually find a few blank pages left on the signature at the end of
     a book. (If your printer uses large signatures, say 8 or 16
     pages/printed surfaces per signature, this is more likely to occur.)
     Since it costs more and is more error prone to add in a smaller
     signature at the end to avoid printing blanks, you've usually got a
     few blank pages to play with anyway. Use them to their fullest.
        In terms of numbering, it does look odd to have page 3-1 (or any
     other odd-numbered page) appear on the left side of a two-page spread,
     and it's worth avoiding this, even if you must add in a blank page.
     For one thing, readers expect to find new sections starting on
     right-hand pages, and it can be annoying if you don't follow this
     learned context. More importantly, several formats (e.g., manuals in
     three-ring binders) are modular and require this convention: when you
     insert a new chapter, or an appendix to a chapter, you can't always
     add the new info. to the back page of a previous chapter, at least not
     without reprinting that chapter too. I'd note one important point
     here: usually, we edit too tightly and end up omitting useful but
     nonessential information, and if you've got a "blank", why not fill it
     with this information?
        I've never used "this page intentionally left blank" in print,
     though I _always_ write it on mockups for the printer. If you place a
     page number at the bottom of the blank page, this does the job just as
     well. If you don't want to use numbered blank pages, a useful solution
     is to place an icon or some other visual clue to signify the end of
     the chapter. Technical Communication uses the "omega" character, and
     other magazines use other means, including lines or clip art (for
     informal use). (This is particularly important if you use numbering
     such as 3-1, 3-2: here, there is no connection between the last page
     of the chapter, 3-X, and the first page of the new chapter, 4-1, so
     implicitly, a page may be missing at the end of the chapter.)
        Does this help?
     --Geoff Hart  #8^{)}   <---note the blank stare
     GEOFF-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA