Unnumbered back cover + blank page before chapter

Question

I'm trying to achieve a rather simple thing: a double-sided document with the back of the cover blank + a blank page before each new chapter. I've got this:

\documentclass[a4paper, 10pt]{book}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhead[LE,RO]{\leftmark }
\fancyhead[LO,RE]{}
\fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\textbf{\thepage}}
\fancyfoot[C]{}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{%
\markboth{\MakeUppercase{\thechapter.\ #1}}{}}
%\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{%
%\markboth{\MakeUppercase{#1}}{}}
\fancypagestyle{plain}{%

\fancyhf{} 
\fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\textbf{\thepage}} 
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}}
\fancypagestyle{blank}{%
        \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
        \fancyhead[LE,RO]{}
        \fancyhead[LO,RE]{}}

\makeatletter
\def\cleardoublepage{\clearpage\if@twoside \ifodd\c@page\else
   \hbox{}
   \thispagestyle{blank}
   \newpage
   \if@twocolumn\hbox{}\newpage\fi\fi\fi}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}
  \huge Test
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\thispagestyle{fancy}
\chapter{Test}
\end{document}

I need

\fancypagestyle{blank}{%
    \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
    \fancyhead[LE,RO]{}
    \fancyhead[LO,RE]{}}
\makeatletter
\def\cleardoublepage{\clearpage\if@twoside \ifodd\c@page\else
   \hbox{}
   \thispagestyle{blank}
   \newpage
   \if@twocolumn\hbox{}\newpage\fi\fi\fi}
\makeatother

to create the blank page before the chapter. But if I use this, the back of my cover is numbered (2). In other words, thispagestyle{empty} is not applied.

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 28 '23 at 04:59

With the emptypage package, you could achieve your goal. If empty, even pages before a new chapter are really blank. And the back of your cover is also completely blank. No need of your blank fancypagestyle, neither the code between \makeatletter and \makeatother.

I hope I have correctly understand your question (As in this code, chapter 2 ends on page 6, chapter 3 directly begins on page 7, and not on page 9 nor page 8. But as usual, chapter 1 ends on page 3, and chapter 2 begins on page 5, not on an even page).

\documentclass[a4paper, 10pt]{book}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhead[LE,RO]{\leftmark }
\fancyhead[LO,RE]{}
\fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\textbf{\thepage}}
\fancyfoot[C]{}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{%
\markboth{\MakeUppercase{\thechapter.\ #1}}{}}
\fancypagestyle{plain}{%

\fancyhf{} 
\fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\textbf{\thepage}} 
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}}
\usepackage{emptypage}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}
  \huge Test
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\thispagestyle{fancy}
\chapter{Test}
\lipsum[1-12]
\chapter{Test2}
\lipsum[10-18]
\chapter{Test3}
\lipsum[20-26]
\end{document}

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 28 '23 at 08:50

IMHO, what you want is almost the default of KOMA-Script class scrbook:

\documentclass[headings=standardclasses,headsepline]{scrbook}
\let\MakeMarkcase\MakeUppercase
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}% I would replace the center environment by \centering command
\begin{center}
  \huge Test
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
\frontmatter% AFAIK this should be before \begin{titlepage} because the title pages of a book usually are counted (but do not show a number).
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\chapter{Test}
\lipsum[1-12]
\chapter{Test2}
\lipsum[10-18]
\chapter{Test3}
\lipsum[20-26]
\end{document}

To make the page number bold, you can additionally use

\setkomafont{pagenumber}{\bfseries}

and to not print the running head slanted and additional

\setkomafont{pageheadfoot}{}

would be needed.

To use the chapter title for the running head of both, odd and even pages, you can additionally use scrlayer-scrpage:

\documentclass[headings=standardclasses,headsepline]{scrbook}
\setkomafont{pagenumber}{\bfseries}
\setkomafont{pageheadfoot}{}
\usepackage[markcase=upper]{scrlayer-scrpage}
\automark[chapter]{chapter}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}% I would replace the center environment by \centering command
  \huge Test
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\chapter{Test}
\lipsum[1-12]
\chapter{Test2}
\lipsum[10-18]
\chapter{Test3}
\lipsum[20-26]
\end{document}

Thank you to you both. Your solutions are indeed working. Discovering KOMA-Script, I think it's gonna get me a neater preamble. I'll dig into the documentation to adapt my titlesec settings. — jfk, Mar 01 '23 at 19:55

Unnumbered back cover + blank page before chapter

2 Answers2