How do I know that a new page has already occurred (LaTeX)

Question

I am using article class with pdflatex and I wanted each section and subsection to begin on top of a new page. I used

\newcommand{\sectionbreak}{\clearpage}
\newcommand{\subsectionbreak}{\clearpage}

But sometimes a subsection ends by filling out its last page and LaTeX puts a new page. Then comes my \clearpage as above and another new page begins, giving me a blank page.

How do I know that a \newpage has already occurred so that I prevent (how?) the automatic \clearpage of the \newcommand above?

Thank you.

Related rules - prevent "action" if top of page - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange — user202729, Jan 02 '22 at 14:29
You can use the ifoddpage package. See https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/196033/how-do-i-test-for-a-new-page — John Kormylo, Jan 02 '22 at 14:39
you have provided no example, but a \clearpage in a section heading definition shouldn't cause a blank page even if a page break woul dhav enaturally occured at that point. Please always provide a small test document that shows the problem you are asking about. — David Carlisle, Jan 02 '22 at 14:45
note that page breaking in tex is asynchronous so typically happens after macros such as section headings have been executed, so even if in the end a page break hapopens just before a section typically the heading and possibly the first paragraph of text after tehheading would alreasy have been typeset before the page break was chosen — David Carlisle, Jan 02 '22 at 15:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 02 '22 at 16:30

I thank David Carlisle; his authoritative statement that such an abnormality should not happen with \clearpage command urged me to go over my file with confidence that I will catch something.

It turned out that I have a \verbatim environment at the end of a section and the last line happens to be a blank line (not my intention) and it is this blank line which prints on the next page. The next page having thus being used (albeit with a blank line) LaTeX starts the new section on a new page, giving me a blank page which actually contains the last blank line of a \verbatim environment.

Removing that blank line solved the apparent anomality.

Thanks again to David Carlisle.

(However, now just out of curiosity, is there a key to check if Latex started a new page?)

Thanks to everyone who took time to comment.

How do I know that a new page has already occurred (LaTeX)

1 Answers1