LaTeX forum ⇒ Theses, Books, Title pages ⇒ Adding back cover page on an even page. Topic is solved

[pvt]

Hi community members!

I discovered this beautiful template and I'm now using it to produce some manuals. Thank you authors
(The Legrand Orange Book template)

I came across the need to have one last page which is the back cover page and it needed to be on an even page. So I added the following to the structure.tex:

\newcommand*\cleartoleftpage{
\clearpage\ifodd\c@page
\hbox{}
\vspace*{\fill}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage
\fi
}

This now means the command

\cleartoleftpage

can be used to guarantee the back cover lands on an even page. As an example, just before the \end{document} in main.tex

\cleartoleftpage

\begingroup
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
		\node[inner sep=0pt] at (current page.center) {\includegraphics[max width=\paperwidth]{backcover}}; % Background image
\end{tikzpicture}
\vfill
\endgroup

I hope it helps someone.

BR,
PVT

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi PVT,

welcome to the forum!

Thank you for sharing this code! It can be helpful.

Btw. it would be great if you would also mention the template name. As I wrote in the announcement post at the top of the forum topic list, "Template information".
Though your tip is generally useful for book-like documents.

Stefan

[pvt]

Hi Stefan,

I suppose you mean tagging appropriately. (I had thought) I did it, but something went wrong. Fixed!

BR,
PVT

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Great, tagging is even better! I did not dare to speak of it after the very first post.
I see that you are an experienced LaTeX user and you like to share your solutions. I hope to see you again here!

Stefan

[Lalilulelo]

Hi LaTeX world

Your command was very helpful, but did not work for me. Here is the error message I get (my file is called backcover.tex):

(./backcover.tex
! Missing number, treated as zero.
<to be read again>
\unhbox
l.3 \cleartoleftpage

I found an other version of \cleartoleftpage here :

\newcommand*\cleartoleftpage{%
  \clearpage
  \ifodd\value{page}\hbox{}\newpage\fi
}

I customed it with a few things you added :

\newcommand*\cleartoleftpage{%
  \clearpage
  \ifodd\value{page}\hbox{}\vspace*{\fill}\thispagestyle{empty}\newpage\fi
}

The \vspace*{\fill}\thispagestyle{empty} allows to have an empty header on the last odd page.

The main difference between your code and the other version seems to be the \value{page} and \c@page. I don't know why

But it finally gives me exactly what I wanted : the final page of my document on an even page with a blank page before.

Awesome !

[Johannes_B]

Your code, or more precisely the code of Martin, uses a higher level of coding, whereas the code in the OP above uses internals that should be used by advanced users only.
The essential thing missing is the catcode change from @ to a letter. Please see What do makeatletter and makeatother do?

[Lalilulelo]

I learned something today Thanks !
Also if I add \makeatletter or \makeatother in the command of the OP, it will work? Don't really know which one to use (can't test either right know, that's why I ask).

[Johannes_B]

Yes, it should work, but i haven't tested.
Functionally, both versions should do the same, they use the same way of doing it. But the version of the OP above uses low-level commands, that aren't allowed in regular documents (low-level) and have to be made available using the @-hackery.

Better do the second approach. People do all kinds of crazy stuff they found on the internet without understanding the solution, leading to much more confusion at the very end.

[Fakhra]

How can I add spine in the same template?