E.1 @setchapternewpage: Blank Pages Before Chapters

In an officially bound book, text is usually printed on both sides of the paper, chapters start on right-hand pages, and right-hand pages have odd numbers. But in short reports, text often is printed only on one side of the paper. Also in short reports, chapters sometimes do not start on new pages, but are printed on the same page as the end of the preceding chapter, after a small amount of vertical whitespace.

You can use the @setchapternewpage command with various arguments to specify how TeX should start chapters and whether it should format headers for printing on one or both sides of the paper (single-sided or double-sided printing).

Write the @setchapternewpage command at the beginning of a line followed by its argument. For example, you would write the following to cause each chapter to start on a fresh odd-numbered page:

@setchapternewpage odd

You can specify one of three alternatives with the @setchapternewpage command:

@setchapternewpage off

Cause TeX to typeset a new chapter on the same page as the last chapter, after skipping some vertical whitespace. Also, cause TeX to format page headers for single-sided printing.

@setchapternewpage on

Cause TeX to start new chapters on new pages and to format page headers for single-sided printing. This is the form most often used for short reports or personal printing. This is the default.

@setchapternewpage odd

Cause TeX to start new chapters on new, odd-numbered pages (right-handed pages) and to typeset for double-sided printing. This is the form most often used for books and manuals.

Texinfo does not have a @setchapternewpage even command, because there is no printing tradition of starting chapters or books on an even-numbered page.

If you don’t like the default headers that @setchapternewpage sets, you can explicit control them with the @headings command. See The @headings Command.

At the beginning of a manual or book, pages are not numbered—for example, the title and copyright pages of a book are not numbered. By convention, table of contents and frontmatter pages are numbered with roman numerals and not in sequence with the rest of the document.

The @setchapternewpage has no effect in output formats that do not have pages, such as Info and HTML.

We recommend not including any @setchapternewpage command in your document source at all, since such desired pagination is not intrinsic to the document. For a particular hard copy run, if you don’t want the default output (no blank pages, same headers on all pages) use the --texinfo option to texi2dvi to specify the output you want.