An intentionally blank page is a page

Page (paper)

A page is one side of a leaf of paper. It can be used as a measurement of documenting or recording quantity .-The page in typography:...

 that is devoid of content, and may be unexpected. Such pages may serve purposes ranging from place-holding to space-filling and content separation. Sometimes, these pages carry a notice such as, "This page is intentionally left blank." Such notices typically appear in printed works, such as legal documents, manuals and exam papers, in which the reader might otherwise suspect that the blank pages are due to a printing

Printing

Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....

 error and where missing pages might have serious consequences.

Print media

Intentionally blank pages are usually the result of printing conventions and techniques. Chapters conventionally start on an odd-numbered page; therefore, if the preceding chapter happens to have an odd number of pages, a blank page is inserted at the end. Book pages are often printed on large sheets because of technical and financial considerations. Thus, a group of 8, 16, or 32 consecutive pages will be printed on a single sheet in such a way that when the sheet is mechanically folded and cut, the pages will be in the correct order for binding. Such a group is called a section or signature. Books printed in this manner will always have as many pages as a multiple of the large sheets they were printed on, such as a multiple of 8, 16, or 32. As a result, these books will usually have pages left blank.

For example, if a book with 318 pages of content is printed using 32-page signatures, it will require 10 signatures, 320 pages in total. At the very end of the book — that is, at the end of the last signature — there will be 2 unused (blank) pages.

If a printer's document processor has been designed to skip completely blank pages, notices may also be required on intentionally blank pages to prevent incorrect page numbering.

Intentionally blank pages are ubiquitous in technical and instructional manuals, directories, and other large, mass-produced volumes of text. The contents of manuals produced by a given product's vendor are often compiled from generic instructions suitable for a variety of products, with additional instructions or chapters included for the specific product or model in question. This automation of manual-generation leads to intentionally blank pages required to fit the requirements for mass printing.

In digital documents, pages are intentionally left blank so that the document can be printed correctly in double-sided format, rather than have new chapters start on the backs of pages. Intentionally blank pages have also been used in documents distributed in ring binder

Ring binder

Ring binders are folders in which punched pieces of paper may be held by means of clamps running through the holes in the paper...

s. The intention is to leave room for expansion without breaking the document's page numbering. This allows updates to be made to a document while requiring minimal new pages, reducing printing costs. The only drawback is the increased time required by the reader to manually insert various newly updated pages into their correct locations in the document.

Standardized tests

Intentionally blank pages can be useful in standardized test

Standardized test

A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a...

s such as the GCSE, Higher School Certificate, SAT

SAT

The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...

, CAT

Common Admission Test

The Common Admission Test is a Computer Based Test in Quantitative Ability, Data Interpretation, Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning. The Indian Institutes of Management use the test as an important component in selecting students for the business administration programs. The test is conducted...

, ACT

ACT (examination)

The ACT is a standardized test for high school achievement and college admissions in the United States produced by ACT, Inc. It was first administered in November 1959 by Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT Reasoning Test...

, MCAT, and GRE

Graduate Record Examination

The Graduate Record Examinations is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States, in other English-speaking countries and for English-taught graduate and business programs world-wide...

. In these exams, there are often individual, timed sections in which test-takers are prohibited from proceeding to the next section until that section's time interval has passed and the examiner allows them to continue. Because all of these separate sections are printed consecutively in the examination booklet, it may be possible for a test-taker who has finished the section early to see through the page and read the problems in the next section. By placing intentionally blank pages between these sections, the test-taker is prevented from cheating in this way. By printing a notice on the page, such as "this page has been intentionally left blank", test-takers will not be concerned that their test has been misprinted.

Sheet music

In books of sheet music

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

, pieces of relatively short music that can span two to four pages often need to be arranged so the number of page turns for the performer is minimized. For example, a three-page work (starting on the left hand sheet) followed immediately by a two-page work involves one page turn during each work. If a blank page immediately followed the three-page work (on the right hand sheet), the two-page work will span the left and right pages, alleviating the need for a page turn during the second work. Intentionally blank pages may also appear to prevent a page turn during a difficult passage.

Classified documents

In the United States armed forces, classified documents require page checks whenever custody is transferred or an inventory is conducted. Blank pages are all marked "This page intentionally left blank" so page checks are unambiguous and every page of the document is accounted for.

Variations

Intentionally blank pages placed at the end of books are often used to balance the folio

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

s which make up the book (see bookbinding

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

). Often these pages are completely blank with no such statement, or are used as "Notes" pages, serving a practical purpose. In the case of telephone number

Telephone number

A telephone number or phone number is a sequence of digits used to call from one telephone line to another in a public switched telephone network. When telephone numbers were invented, they were short — as few as one, two or three digits — and were given orally to a switchboard operator...

 directories, these pages are often used to list important numbers and addresses. In novels, pages may list other books available from the same publisher.

Book publishers have also used stylized designs (dingbat

Dingbat

A dingbat is an ornament, character or spacer used in typesetting, sometimes more formally known as a "printer's ornament" or "printer's character"....

s) underneath the last paragraph of a chapter to indicate that no other content is to be expected until the next chapter, allowing for the possibility of blank pages without misunderstandings by the readers.

Examples

Andy Griffiths

Andy Griffiths

Andrew "Andy" Griffiths is an Australian children's book author and comedy writer. He is most notable for his Just! series, which was converted into an animated television series called What's with Andy?...

' book Just Stupid!

Just Stupid!

Just Stupid! is the third book in the Just! series by Andy Griffiths. It contains various silly short stories, about things such as snail-shell repairing, baby pram riding, and nonsense dreams.-Busting:...

, begins with a cartoon snail saying to the reader, "This page would be blank if I were not here telling you that this page would be blank if I were not here telling you that..." on an endless loop.

Author Idries Shah

Idries Shah

Idries Shah , also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi , was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.Born in India, the descendant of a...

, distrusting critics' reviews of his books, wrote The Book of the Book, which consists of sixteen written pages of reviews of itself. The rest of the book is intentionally filled with about 140 blank pages to give the appearance of a normal book.

Humorist Don Novello

Don Novello

Don Novello is an American writer, film director, producer, actor, singer, and comedian. Novello is best known for his work on NBC's Saturday Night Live, from 1977 until 1980, and then 1985 until 1986, often as the character "Father Guido Sarducci". Novello has appeared as "Sarducci" on many...

's 1977 book The Lazlo Letters ends with several otherwise-blank pages marked "FREE PAPER!".

External links

• The This Page Intentionally Left Blank Project
• Everything2 discussion of the phrase
• BBC h2g2 entry on the phrase
• "This page intentionally left blank" phrase translated into over 60 languages. (Via Internet Archive.)
• Humorous look at the history of blank pages
• Guide to writing intentionally blank pages in XSL-FO