Preventing `\mainmatter` from inserting a blank page

Question

\mainmatter seems to sometimes force a blank page if the current contents (the place where \mainmatter is called) are on an odd numbered page. openany and oneside do not seem to work here. They only work when opening a new chapter, but not when the main matter starts.

I want to disable inserting of blank pages altogether even at the beginning of the main matter.

\documentclass[11pt, openany, oneside]{book}

    \usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
% BEGIN_FOLD

    \geometry{twoside=false, showframe=false,inner=1.05in,outer=1.05in,includemp=true,asymmetric=true,bindingoffset=0mm,marginparsep=0mm, marginparwidth=0mm}
    \geometry{bottom=0.9in,vmarginratio=3:5,includehead=true, includefoot=true,headheight=8pt, headsep=14pt,footskip=10.9mm}

% END_FOLD

    \usepackage{blindtext}

\begin{document}

\blindtext

\tableofcontents
\clearpage
\blindtext

\mainmatter
\Blinddocument

\end{document}

What does the asymetric option do for you? Why are you including all those different options to geometry? In other words, why do you tell the package you do not want a twoside document, and later overwrite that stating you do want twoside? — Johannes_B, Jul 01 '19 at 10:01
I copied the code from my thesis .tex file. I was just trying to fine-tune the geometry in such a way that the blank page will exist. — Al-Motasem Aldaoudeyeh, Jul 01 '19 at 10:05

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 01 '19 at 10:46

2

With a temporarily altered definition of \cleardoublepage:

\documentclass[11pt, openany, oneside]{book}

    \usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
% BEGIN_FOLD

    \geometry{twoside=false, showframe=false,inner=1.05in,outer=1.05in,includemp=true,asymmetric=true,bindingoffset=0mm,marginparsep=0mm, marginparwidth=0mm}
    \geometry{bottom=0.9in,vmarginratio=3:5,includehead=true, includefoot=true,headheight=8pt, headsep=14pt,footskip=10.9mm}

% END_FOLD

    \usepackage{blindtext}

\begin{document}

\blindtext

\tableofcontents
\clearpage
\blindtext

{
\renewcommand{\cleardoublepage}{\newpage}
\mainmatter
}
\Blinddocument

\end{document}

answered Jul 01 '19 at 10:46

user191948

251

4

Note that the geometry option "asymmetric" or "asymmetric = true" are a special alternative to option twooside. Therefore your settings will lead to a twosided document. \ mainmatter changes the page numbering system and restarts the page counter. The blank even page before "\ manimatter" is inserted to ensure that right-hand pages receive odd page numbers. Do not try to get an odd page number on a left-hand page in a twosided document. So do not redefine \cleardoublepage. Note that in a onesided document there will be no blank page before \mainmatter. – esdd Jul 01 '19 at 11:27
In my case (in a memoir document), this made me completely lose the effect of mainmatter. In particular, chapters stopped being numbered. – tobiasBora Mar 14 '22 at 08:08

Preventing `\mainmatter` from inserting a blank page

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