LaTeX: remove blank page after a \part or \chapter

Question

How to remove a blank page that gets added automatically after \part{} or \chapter{} in a book document class?

I need to add some short text describing the \part. Adding some text after the part command results in at least 3 pages with an empty page between the part heading and the text:

1. Part xx
2. (empty)
3. some text

How to get rid of that empty page?

P.S. Latex: How to remove blank pages coming between two chapters IN Appendix? is similar but it changes the behavior for the rest of the text while I need to remove the empty page for this one \part command only.

Answer 1

I believe that in the book class all \part and \chapter are set to start on a recto page.

from book.cls:

\newcommand\part{%
  \if@openright
    \cleardoublepage
  \else
    \clearpage
  \fi
  \thispagestyle{plain}%
  \if@twocolumn
    \onecolumn
    \@tempswatrue
  \else
    \@tempswafalse
  \fi
  \null\vfil
  \secdef\@part\@spart}

you should be able to renew that command, and something similar for the \chapter.

Answer 2

You don't say what class you are using, but I'm guessing it is the standard book. In which case the page clearing is a feature of he class which you can override as Mica suggests, or solve by switching to another class. The standard report class is similar to book, or the memoir class is an improved book and is very flexible indeed.

Answer 3

I think you can simply add the oneside option the book class?

i.e.

\documentclass[oneside]{book}

Although I didn't test it :)

Answer 4

A solution that works:

Wrap the part of the document that needs this modified behavior with the code provided below. In my case the portion to wrap is a \part{} and some text following it.

\makeatletter\@openrightfalse
\part{Whatever}

Some text

\chapter{Foo}
\@openrighttrue\makeatother

The wrapped portion should also include the chapter at the beginning of which this behavior needs to stop. Otherwise LaTeX may generate an empty page before this chapter.

Source: folks at the #latex IRC channel on irc.freenode.net

Answer 5

Although I guess you don't need an answer any longer, I give the solution for those who will come to see this post.

from book.cls

\def\@endpart{\vfil\newpage
              \if@twoside
                \null
                \thispagestyle{empty}%
                \newpage
              \fi
              \if@tempswa
                \twocolumn
              \fi}

It is "\newpage" at the first line of this fragment that adds a redundant blank page after the part header page. So you must redefine the command \@endpart. Add the following snippet to the beggining of your tex file.

\makeatletter
\renewcommnd\@endpart{\vfil
              \if@twoside
                \null
                \thispagestyle{empty}%
                \newpage
              \fi
              \if@tempswa
                \twocolumn
              \fi}
\makeatother

Answer 6

I know it's a bit late, but I just came across this post and wanted to mention that I don't really see way everybody wants to do it in a difficult way... The problem here is just that the book class takes twoside as default, so, as gromgull said, just pass oneside as argument and it's solved.

Answer 7

It leaves blank pages so that a new part or chapter start on the right-hand side. You can fix this with the "openany" option for the document class. ;)