Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

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Karen12
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:30 am

Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by Karen12 »

Hi --- For some reason I am having difficulty with Flare recognizing when I set Auto-end on 'left' page to DISABLED to remove blank pages. I've made sure the Break Type, Page Layout, Page Type, Chapter File Name, Page Number, and Section Break fields are all correct. When I build the target, it leaves the blank pages in the PDF, like I'd never told it to disable them! What gives? :? :x
Nita Beck
Senior Propellus Maximus
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Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:57 am
Location: Pittsford, NY

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by Nita Beck »

Welcome to the forums, Karen! :)

Diagnosing what’s causing the blank pages may take a bit of sleuthing, as blank pages could have any of several causes.

For example, is there a Page Break proxy lurking at the bottom of a topic that ends up with a blank page after it?

Is the last bit of content on a page that is successed by a blank page assigned a style that has been defined with “page-break-after: always”?

Likewise, is the first bit of content on a page that is preceded by a blank page assigned a style that has been defined with “page-break-before: always”? I know that’s the case with how h1 has been defined for print in some of the Flare “factory” templates.

You just might have to dig a bit. Sorry I can’t be more definitive. HTH.
Nita
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RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
dogsma
Propeller Head
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Joined: Sat May 05, 2018 6:27 am

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by dogsma »

I am having the same problem, perhaps, with the toc properties not applying when I use the toc gui. I have looked at grid view, and can see that the properties I have applied in tree view using the gui editor are not applied. In particular, the auto-end disabled.

Page type seems to be a real issue at times. It just won't "take" through the gui editor.

I have tried a few things, all more or less labour-intensive.

1. I try "shaking" the properties loose. I have adjusted the properties to be way off what I want. Then I Save. Then reapply properties I want. Save. Presto! in the case of the layout page type, or auto end on left, it often applies.

2. When this doesn't work, I open the toc in the internal editor. I can see that the properties have not been applied by the gui editor, so I manually update them.

3. I create all new topics from existing topics that don't have property issues. Each time I create and add a topic to the toc, using Flare's features, this sort of thing happens. I am making sure now that I use topic that doesn't have display issues now and copying them to create new topics.

I thought it might be my version, 2017 r3 and now have 2018 r2 and same problems are occurring. I am pulling my hair out. It shouldn't be this hard. Why won't the gui properties work?
Jeong
Propeller Head
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2020 12:05 am

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by Jeong »

2021 and this problem still seems to be an issue. I'd not had a problem for a while, but there seems to be something buggy about the "Empty Page Handling: Inject empty pages as needed to ensure TOC nodes start on their selected pages" option. I'm sometimes getting an additional blank page (on my usual L/R page layout) before my [this page intentionally blank] page (this happened when I had a topic appear in a ToC more than once > had to make a duplicate of the ToC with a different filename to avoid this (defeats the purpose of single-sourcing). I'm also seeing a blank page on my normal L/R page layout appearing where there should be a [this page intentionally blank] page on my Empty layout.
Isleofgough
Propeller Head
Posts: 91
Joined: Sat Dec 08, 2012 9:05 am
Location: Seattle WA

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by Isleofgough »

I have found that sometimes you fix the page continuity in the table of contents but it doesn't stick and you need to do it again. I would go back to each topic in the table of contents and double check the continuity settings. The other thing to check is the page styles. If you have just a right and left page, it usually works fine, assuming the continuity settings are ok in the table of contents. But if you have extra pages in the page style sheet, that might be the issue.
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cwilkins
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:11 pm

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by cwilkins »

I had a problem with extra blank pages appearing at the END of some PDF output. I dug through the topic files and TOC settings but couldn't fix the problem.

Madcap Support fixed this by removing the "Empty" page type from the Page Layout file in the project. Note that we weren't actually applying the Empty page type in the TOC or anywhere else, but apparently Flare decided to inject it into the PDF output.

Not sure if this addresses the problems mentioned in this thread, but thought I would share.
Doc DJ
Jr. Propeller Head
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Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:57 am

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by Doc DJ »

cwilkins wrote:I had a problem with extra blank pages appearing at the END of some PDF output. I dug through the topic files and TOC settings but couldn't fix the problem.

Madcap Support fixed this by removing the "Empty" page type from the Page Layout file in the project. Note that we weren't actually applying the Empty page type in the TOC or anywhere else, but apparently Flare decided to inject it into the PDF output.

Not sure if this addresses the problems mentioned in this thread, but thought I would share.
Thank you for sharing this. It helped me solve this is same issue in about 10 minutes instead of...likely never. :)
teknikulriter
Propeller Head
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Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2023 2:15 pm

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by teknikulriter »

So far, none of the above solutions worked, and it's been like 2 years after the last reply. Did anything change, or do I need to open yet another ticket with Flare?
tekwrite55
Propeller Head
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Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:37 am

Re: Unwanted blank pages in PDF output

Post by tekwrite55 »

Removing the empty page from the page layout (see above-Cwilkins) helped me to get rid of the blank pages.
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