Section Breaks without blank pages in Pages?

Question

Section Breaks without blank pages in Pages?

I have a book manuscript with Section Breaks inserted at the end of each chapter. There are no returns or any keystrokes between the Section Breaks and the next chapters.

I pasted the manuscript into CreateSpace's 6x9 template for publishing.

I then added new Section Breaks by deleting the old ones and inserting new ones from the top "Insert" menu in the exact same spot in order to add the proper headers.

However, 6 of the chapters will not allow me to add a Section Break without a blank page showing up between chapters. There are no keystrokes or returns anywhere between the ends of a chapters and the beginning of the next ones.

I have searched here for answers and found none. All suggestions are 3+ years or older and refer to older operating systems. I have the most recent one.

FYI, I tried adding a "Section" (from the top menu) just to see what it would do. It added 3 blank pages and 2-3 Section Breaks. What?!?! Also, using the "Create a new section" tab from the right side menu adds a blank page.

iMac, iOS 10.2.1

Posted on Mar 18, 2017 3:17 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 20, 2017 6:15 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

Thanks for your quick reply.

Invisibles are turned on and there are none on the blank pages. No images or tables with TextWrap.

FYI, page numbers were inserted after trying to insert the Section Breaks. Also, even when I removed all returns so that "2" from Ch. 2 was positioned next to the last period of Ch. 1, a blank page still showed up when I inserted a Section Break.

First image is the original Section Break/original manuscript, second image with the replacement one, third image with no Section Break.

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Answer 2

Mar 18, 2017 8:01 PM in response to victoriaauthor

"The most recent one" is meaningless. Too many times what people mean and what it is, varies. Especially when their tag says "iMac, iOS 10.2.1".

Menu > Apple > About this Mac

Menu > Pages > About Pages

Start with:

Menu > View > Show Invisibles

What do you see on the blank pages?

You can take a screen snap of what you see using command shift 4 drag over the area, and post it here using the camera icon.

What do you mean by "right side menu"? The Sidebar?

Is it possible that what is on either the previous or subsequent pages has trouble fitting? Usually a full page image or table with TextWrap set.

Peter

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Answer 3

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Mar 21, 2017 6:36 AM in response to victoriaauthor

HI va'

This is a guess, as there's not enough information to make a detemination.

Do the sections followed by a blank page end on an odd numbered page?

If so, it appears that you have set a preference for new sections to begin on a right (recto) page. Recto pages are odd numbered, verso pages are even numbered. If a section ends on a verso page, the next section can start on the next page; if the section ends on a recto page, the following page must be skipped to make the next section begin on a recto page.

Regards,

Barry

PS: Which 'victoria'?

Just curious.

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Answer 4

Mar 21, 2017 12:19 AM in response to Barry

Barry

For some reason the O.P. thinks that we can help better if they don't tell us exactly what they are using, but despite trimming off any clues in the screen snaps, I am guessing that it is Pages 6, and Pages 6 does not have facing pages, so therefore does not have any preferences for left or right pages.

Peter

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Answer 5

Mar 21, 2017 6:36 AM in response to Barry

Thank you for your reply, Barry. Yes, it turns out the sections followed by a blank page do end on odd-numbered pages.

However, Pages 6 (what I have) doesn't have the right/left page preference option that previous versions had, which begs the question of how one can automatically insert the page numbers in the correct position. As it is, they all show up on the left side.

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Answer 6

Mar 21, 2017 9:56 AM in response to victoriaauthor

Now we creep closer to what is happening, is it possible this document/template started off as a Pages '09 document?

It may be retaining some of the formatting without the User Interface to control it.

That has happened in some of Apple's own templates, such as some of the C.V.s.

Peter

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