To keep a blank verso in your Pages book’s numbering, use an explicit blank page with continuous numbering, then hide its header and footer. Apple documents the controls needed for this approach, but no switch that makes an automatically inserted blank count.

This guide is for a Mac user preparing a book with fixed page positions, such as a printed book or PDF. The task is specific: leave a left-hand page blank between chapters while keeping its place in the numbered sequence. The blank can count without displaying a number.

Understand which kind of blank page you have

Apple’s Section starts on: Right Page setting can insert a blank before a section when the next available page is on the left. Its documentation explains that placement behavior but does not state how the inserted blank participates in numbering or provide an “include blank pages” control. Do not assume that choosing Right Page alone guarantees the numbering you need. See Apple’s section formatting documentation.

There are two practical routes. An explicit blank page lets you maintain an ordinary continuous sequence. Alternatively, a manually assigned starting number can account for a blank before the next chapter. The first route requires checking page placement after edits; the second requires checking numerical offsets. Neither should be treated as a documented automatic solution for counting generated blanks.

Use this illustrative target to distinguish counting from displaying a number:

Position in the book Content Displayed number Place in the sequence
Right-hand page End of Chapter A 15 15
Left-hand page, or verso Blank None 16
Right-hand page Start of Chapter B 17 17

These numbers are an example, not an observed Pages result. The acceptance test is that Chapter B displays 17 while the intervening page stays visually empty.

Check the document type and facing-page setup

Click Document in the toolbar and inspect Document Body. A selected checkbox identifies a word-processing document; an unselected checkbox identifies a page layout document. Word-processing documents flow body text between pages, while page layout documents use manually arranged objects and manually added pages. Follow the matching instructions below. Apple explains this distinction in Intro to word-processing and page layout documents.

For a word-processing book, open Document > Document and select Facing Pages under Document Margins. Page thumbnails then appear as spreads; the Two Pages zoom setting also shows left and right pages side by side. This makes the blank’s position easier to inspect. In a page layout document, Facing Pages is under Header & Footer Margins. See Set up facing pages in Pages documents on Mac.

Before changing a chapter boundary, note the last displayed number before it and the first displayed number after it. Use those two values to check the result. A blank-looking page by itself cannot tell you whether the sequence is correct.

Create an explicit blank verso in a word-processing book

The following method combines Apple’s documented page-break, section, and header controls. It is a derived workflow: Apple does not present it as a dedicated blank-verso feature. It assumes the next chapter already begins a section and the preceding chapter ends on a right-hand page.

  1. Select the next chapter’s section. In Document > Section, set Section starts on to Next Page and Page Numbering to Continue from previous section. This removes the need for an automatically generated alignment blank at that boundary.
  2. Place the insertion point immediately before the chapter’s first character.
  3. Choose Insert > Page Break from the menu bar. The chapter text moves forward, leaving an explicit blank before it.
  4. Inspect the spread: the blank should be left-hand, with the chapter opening on the right. Apple documents section start and numbering controls and inserting page breaks.

The blank is now the first page of the chapter’s section. Select Hide on first page of section in the Section sidebar to suppress its header and footer. This setting controls their visibility on that first page; it is separate from the numbering settings. Apple describes it in Add and remove headers and footers in Pages on Mac.

Check the numbers on both sides of the blank against the example above. Pages’ inserted page-number fields adjust as pages are added or deleted, and section starting-number settings affect their values. Use those fields rather than typing replacement digits into a footer. See Add page numbers in Pages on Mac.

This approach has a maintenance cost: the explicit page break remains after you edit earlier text. If the preceding chapter changes length, inspect the boundary again. Keep the blank only when it produces the intended left-hand blank and right-hand chapter opening. Avoid adding several empty paragraphs to position the chapter.

If a chapter does not yet have its own section, place the insertion point before it and use the toolbar’s Insert > Section Break control first. Apple documents this under starting a new section at the insertion point.

Use a manual starting number when retaining an automatic blank

If you retain a generated alignment blank and the following chapter’s number omits its place, select that chapter’s section and use Page Numbering > Start at. Apple supports assigning a section’s starting number. For the illustrative sequence ending at 15 with one intervening blank, enter 17. See Change the starting number and number style.

The calculation is next chapter number = preceding chapter’s last number + intervening blank pages + 1. This accounts for the blank in the displayed sequence; it does not establish that Pages includes the generated blank in every page-count field. Recalculate after earlier edits, and check subsequent chapter openings for additional offsets.

Handle an existing page layout book

In a page layout document, select the page immediately before the required blank in Page Thumbnails, then click Add Page. Inspect the inserted page and ensure its content is empty. Apple documents this insertion method in Add pages in Pages on Mac.

To hide the blank’s header and footer, click a corner of the page so no object is selected, open Format, and deselect Show header and footer. This is the documented per-page control for page layout documents. Do not turn off the document-wide Header or Footer checkbox: Apple says that removes their content throughout the document. See Add and remove headers and footers.

With the page background selected, the Format sidebar’s Page Numbering controls let you continue from the previous page or specify a starting number. Check both the blank and the following page for an unintended restart. These controls differ from the Section sidebar used in word-processing documents. See Add page numbers in Pages on Mac.

Verify the final sequence and respect the output limits

Check each affected boundary for three separate results: one blank page in the intended position, no visible header or footer on that blank, and the correct number on the next chapter. If an extra page appears, inspect the page-break marks before adding another break. Apple explains that breaks are formatting characters you can reveal using invisibles in Set pagination and line and page breaks.

For a PDF check, choose File > Export To > PDF, save the copy, and open it to inspect the same boundaries. Correct problems in the Pages original and export again: changes to an exported file do not change the source document. Apple documents the export process in Convert to Word, PDF, or another file format.

Do not extend the fixed-page result to reflowable EPUB. Apple explains that reflowable EPUB adapts to screen size and lets readers change font size, while fixed layout preserves the document’s layout. A blank-verso arrangement therefore needs evaluation in its intended output format. See Apple’s EPUB export options.

Keynote’s numbering controls do not supply an additional Pages setting. Apple documents slide-number visibility and states that skipped slides are not numbered; those are presentation controls, not book-section controls. Keep this task in Pages. See Show or hide slide numbers in Keynote on Mac.

A finished boundary should satisfy the whole sequence: the blank occupies its intended page position, its number stays hidden, and the next chapter advances past it. Recheck those three conditions whenever earlier edits change the book’s pagination.

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