double-sidedpage-breaking
I am putting together a document that has several cover pages, both for front and back cover. The bulk of the document is two-sided. Cover pages, however, must be right-side (or left-side, for the back cover) pages.
How can I force the next page to specifically be a right-side-page or a left-side-page?
Longer post
I'm using double flopping/reflecting method. It requires several steps, please use pdflatex or lualatex. The example below could be slightly modified to be used with xelatex, please see How to automatically output page order to print 8 pages of a booklet on a single sheet of Letter paper?, where I used \XeTeXpdfpagecount instead of \pdfximage and \pdflastximagepages. Then all three major LaTeX engines could be run.
Step 1: The materials to be printed
I am emulating 32 unrelated business cards with both sides typesetted. We will try to print 4x4 of them on A4 papers, duplex and long edge printing. I enclose the TeX code (mal-pdf-part1.tex) and a preview of the first eight pages (of 64).
% run: any LaTeX engine mal-pdf-part1.tex
\documentclass[a4paper,landscape]{article}
\paperwidth=0.25\paperwidth
\paperheight=0.25\paperheight
\pdfpagewidth=\paperwidth
\pdfpageheight=\paperheight
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\newcount\malc
\malc=0
\loop
\advance\malc by 1
\foreach \mcolor/\mside in {green/front,blue/back} {%
\newpage
\pagecolor{\mcolor}%
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]
\node[font=\bfseries,scale=10,yshift=0.8mm] at (current page) {\the\malc}; % front side
\node[font=\bfseries,scale=4,yshift=-4mm] at (current page) {\mside{} side}; % back side
\end{tikzpicture}%
}% End of \foreach...
\ifnum\malc<32\repeat % E.g. a number of business cards...
\end{document}
Step 2: Rearranging the odd pages (the front/recto pages)
Generally speaking, we only need to select them (step 2a) and use basic nup=4x4 in the pdfpages package (step 2b). I enclose both TeX files and a preview of the PDF files.
This is the mal-pdf-part2a.tex file (preview consists of 8 pages of 32):
% run: pdflatex or lualatex mal-pdf-part2a.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\def\malfile{mal-pdf-part1.pdf}
\pdfximage{\malfile}
\newcount\malc \malc=0
\loop
\advance\malc by 1%
\ifnum\malc<\pdflastximagepages
\ifodd\malc\else
\includepdf[fitpaper,pages={\the\malc},angle=90]{\malfile}
\fi
\repeat
\end{document}
And this is the mal-pdf-part2b.tex file:
% run: pdflatex or lualatex mal-pdf-part2b.tex
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\includepdf[pages={-},nup=4x4,frame]{mal-pdf-part2a.pdf}
\end{document}
Step 3: Rearranging the even pages (the back/verso pages)
In step 3a we are selecting even pages, rotating them (-90 degrees for long-edge printing, 90 degrees for short-edge printing, if needed) and reflecting them for the first time. This is the mal-pdf-part3a.tex file and a preview of the first eight pages of 32:
% run: pdflatex or lualatex mal-pdf-part3a.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\def\malfile{mal-pdf-part1.pdf}
\pdfximage{\malfile}
\newcount\malc \malc=0
\loop
\advance\malc by 1%
\ifnum\malc<\pdflastximagepages
\ifodd\malc
\includepdf[fitpaper,pages={\the\malc},angle=-90,reflect]{\malfile}
% We would use angle=90 for short-edge duplex printing.
% We use angle=-90 for long-edge duplex printing.
\fi
\repeat
\end{document}
And this is the mal-pdf-part3b.tex file:
% run: pdflatex or lualatex mal-pdf-part3b.tex
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\includepdf[pages={-},nup=4x4,frame]{mal-pdf-part3a.pdf}
\end{document}
Step 4: Putting PDF files together
Our last step is to put those two PDF files together. The final PDF file consists of 4 pages (2 A4 papers) in the end. As we can see we are reflecting the back pages one more time. It's happening after the rearranging step, therefore the rectangles will start fitting to each other after printing.
I enclose the last TeX source code and a preview of the final PDF file. This file is ready to be printed (long edge, duplex, A4 paper) and cut into 16 pieces per paper afterwards.
In production we must be careful that there is usually 5 milimeters space around the page where printer cannot print due to technical limitations (office laser and ink printers). We usually use the scale parameter (twice in this example) in this final step. I'm using scale=1 in this example, in production I usually use scale=0.92.
% run: pdflatex or lualatex mal-pdf-part4.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\def\malfile{mal-pdf-part2b.pdf}
\pdfximage{\malfile}
\newcount\malc % inicialization of page counter
\malc=0 % setting the counter
\loop
\advance\malc by 1%
\includepdf[fitpaper,pages={\the\malc},scale=1]{mal-pdf-part2b.pdf} % 0.92 in production
\includepdf[fitpaper,pages={\the\malc},reflect,scale=1]{mal-pdf-part3b.pdf} % 0.92 in production
\ifnum\malc<\pdflastximagepages\repeat
\end{document}
Closing notes
In this example, we are running:
pdflatex mal-pdf-part1.tex
pdflatex mal-pdf-part1.tex
pdflatex mal-pdf-part2a.tex
pdflatex mal-pdf-part2b.tex
pdflatex mal-pdf-part3a.tex
pdflatex mal-pdf-part3b.tex
pdflatex mal-pdf-part4.tex
We can easily change the nup parameter from 4x4 to anything we like, however, a change would be required in mal-pdf-part2b.tex and also in mal-pdf-part3b.tex.
We don't use frame parameter (the same two files) in production.
If we need to enter an empty page somewhere in the middle of the document, we usually use \newpage\mbox{} in the first step (twice as we typeset front and back pages).
If we enter less papers (<32 in this example) in mal-pdf-part1.tex then the remaining space will be empty. Due to the double reflecting method the empty space will also fit. I enclose an example where I entered 30 pages instead of 32.
I couldn't find a solution in viable time, so I ended up by manually editing the doc.toc table of contents index and adding several \afterpage \cleardoublepage commands through it to force clearing the pages.
In the main document I replaced the \tableofcontents command with \input doc.toc which prevents indexing a new table of contents and reads the file I've manually edited:
\documentclass[11pt,twoside,a4paper]{report}
\usepackage{afterpage}
\begin{document}
\input doc.toc
\chapter{}
\end{document}
If anyone still has a programmatic solution, please contribute.
EDIT: Instead of manually editing the .toc file one can add a
\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\afterpage\protect\cleardoublepage}
command throughout the main text (e.g. after the begining of each chapter), which will add the \cleardoublepage command to the .toc just the same. This way, you can call the toc with \tableofcontents as always.
Best Answer
For odd / right-side pages you can use
\cleardoublepagein two-sided documents. (In one-sided ones\cleardoublepageis identical to\clearpage)To force even / left-side pages you would need to define your own macro based on
\cleardoublepage, but with reversed logic:A more complex version which behaves nicely in single-sided documents and also supports two-column mode is:
This is the definition of
\cleardoublepagejust with the\elseremoved to negate the logic, i.e. make it force even pages instead of odd.