How do I remove automatically added blank pages?

[MollyCruz]

On multiple occasions when working with word documents (usually large in
size) a "phantom" page appears in between sections. This page is only visible
in "Print Preview" and it appears when actually printed out, or if the
document is converted to a PDF.

I am well aware of the general rules of adding page breaks and section
breaks, etc. I have tried removing the section breaks around the “phantomâ€
page. This just “bumps†the “phantom†page up to the next section break.

The only work-around I have found is to copy, section-by-section (without
the section breaks) the entire document into a blank word document and
reapply each section break, and reformat ALL of the headers and footers. This
is very cumbersome and I am hoping to learn of some obscure setting that I
may inadvertently be applying or not applying that will rid me of the
headache that is the “phantom†page! Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See the "true blank page" section of
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/BlankPage.htm

 

[MollyCruz]

The page you sent me to was very informative. the last two paragraphs on the
page (prior to the "Blank pages not caused by Word at all" section) detail
exactly what I’m dealing with. Unfortunately I do not see a solution listed.
What do I do to avoid/fix the problem? Is there no solution?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There is no "solution." Word is doing what it is supposed to do. When you
have an Odd Page section start, Word will insert a blank even page. If
you're restarting numbering and the section starts at 1, Word will not put
an odd-numbered page on an "even" sheet.

 

[Sammsus]

MollyCruz,

I hope you found your answer before this, because I have been experiencing
the same exact problem and was pulling my hair out and had lost days against
my deadline for this document!

Turns out--and I didn't realize this because it said it was page 25 of 76
and then page 27 of 76 of the document (skipped) --that the section WAS
starting its page numbers over at 1 for each of the offending sections. So, I
went to the beginning of each section to Format Page Number and low and
behold, it was set to start at page 1---for about 1/2 of my sections!
Switching it to Continuous helped.

I found this because I customized the bottom status bar to show everything
and along with 25 of 76, it showed Page 1 Section 15 or Page 34 Section 14.

Before you say, "Oh, I set the whole document to Continuous numbering"...so
did I!!
In fact, I didn't have page numbering and I clicked on remove, etc. But this
is what fixed it and I had NO Odd/Even headers.

What was odd is that if I removed the cover page or one of my blank pages,
my problem went away--but that's not how I wanted it!! So I don't know what
the deal was.

I hope this helps you out!!


Sus