Making Sure a Document Always Has an Even Number of Pages

Zelda would like to be able to automatically add a blank page at the end of a Word document when that document contains an odd number of pages. She would like this to happen because she produces many separate documents that are combined in Adobe and created as PDFs for double-sided printing.

There are two things you can try to get the desired extra page. The first (and perhaps the easiest) is to add a field code to the end of your document that adds the extra page, but only if there are an odd number of pages in the document. Here's the field code:

{ IF { =MOD({ PAGE \* ARABIC}, 2)} = 0 "" "<page break>" }

This should be placed immediately after the last paragraph at the very end of the document. You create the field braces by using Ctrl+F9, and where you see <page break> you should actually add a page break by pressing Ctrl+Enter. The field only adds the page break if the page on which the field occurs is an odd page number. This approach (using the field) is very similar to the approach discussed on this page at the Word MVP site:

http://wordmvp.com/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/InsEvnPgEndChap.htm

The other approach is to use a macro to add the extra page. This doesn't have to be a fancy macro; something as simple as the following will do:

Sub AddPageIfOddNumberOfPages()
If ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties("number of pages") Mod 2 <> 0 Then
    Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
    Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdSectionBreakNextPage
End If
End Sub

Of course, this macro should only be run a single time, just before you print the document for the first time.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13150) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Making Sure a Document Always Has an Even Number of Pages.