Force proper odd/even margins even with changed numbering

Question

I wrote "a book" and now I want to print it. I though that I'll just use twoside option and everything will be allright but there is always some problem...

Problems:

1) When I use twoside option, the first page is "on the left side in the book". Should be "on the right side in the book", right? Ok, so I added a blank page as the first page - now my "title page" is "on the right side in the book". It's a dirty solution, but it works. I'm using this "trick" further in the book. Is there any nicer solution?

2) The main problem I just can't find any solution to is with odd/even margins combined with start of pagenumbering. Let's see here:

On top left page the content ends. On the top right page, there is something like "First chapter page". On bottom left there is a blank page. So far so good (odd/even margins are on "the right side" and switching with every page). But on the bottom right page, there is a problem.

I want there first numbered page. But when I use \pagenumbering{arabic} in the code, then the page with number 1 is always "on the left side in the book" - right margin is larger than the left and "alternating of margins" is broke in this case.

I read so many answers here on the forum (e.g. using \cleardoublepage) but nothing worked for me. Any advice? I accept even some "dirty tricks" just to make it work.

TL;DR; Basically I want to force odd/even margins no matter what - page numbering, title pages, chapters etc. Just to make sure, that margins are switching with every new page.

My code:

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,twoside]{report}
\usepackage[top=2.5cm,bottom=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage[cp1250]{inputenc}
\usepackage[czech]{babel}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{nameref}
\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{float}
\bibliographystyle{plain}

\newcommand{\blankpage}{
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage
\mbox{}
\newpage
}

\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{gobble}

\blankpage
% TITLE PAGE
\begin{center}
\centering
{\huge\bfseries Author\par}
\vspace*{8cm}
{\Huge\bfseries Name\dots\par}
\vspace*{13cm}
{\huge\bfseries Year\par}
\newpage
\end{center}

\begin{flushleft}
\vspace*{8cm}
\noindent
{\bfseries Thanks to all ..\par}
\vspace*{13cm}
\noindent
ISBN: 12345678913543
\newpage
\end{flushleft}

\section*{Introduction}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Introduction}
\lipsum[3]

\blankpage

% content
\tableofcontents

\chapter*{\centering \vspace*{8cm} \textbf{First part: lorem ipsum}}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{First part: lorem ipsum}
\newpage

\blankpage
\pagenumbering{arabic}% Remove page numbers (and reset to 1)

\section*{First Section of the book}
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{First Section of the book}
\lipsum

.......
\end{document}

Answer 1

The odd/even page is based on the page counter so if you reset the number to one you should first issue \cleardoublepage so that you are on an odd page, so changing the page number does not change the parity.

Here you see the boxed margin is consistently on the outer edge and the book title and part title are on a right hand page.

I started with a blank (even) page 0 to encourage the pdf reader I used here to put the odd numbered pages on the right. That probably needs to be removed if you print double sided as you want to print page 1 then page 2 on the back of that sheet, not page 1 on the back of page 0.

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,twoside,openright]{report}
\usepackage[top=2.5cm,bottom=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage[cp1250]{inputenc}
\usepackage[czech]{babel}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{nameref}
\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{float}
\bibliographystyle{plain}


\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}

\setcounter{page}{0}
 \mbox{} % 0 blank page just for onscreen preview

\clearpage

% TITLE PAGE
\begin{center}
%%%\centering
{\huge\bfseries Author\par}
\vspace*{8cm}
{\Huge\bfseries Name\dots\par}
\vspace*{13cm}
{\huge\bfseries Year\par}
\end{center}

\newpage

\begin{flushleft}
\vspace*{8cm}
\noindent
{\bfseries Thanks to all ..\par}
\vspace*{13cm}
\noindent
ISBN: 12345678913543
\newpage
\end{flushleft}

\section*{Introduction}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Introduction}
\lipsum[3]

\cleardoublepage

% content
\tableofcontents


\chapter*{\centering \vspace*{8cm} \textbf{First part: lorem ipsum}}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{First part: lorem ipsum}

\cleardoublepage
\pagenumbering{arabic}% Remove page numbers (and reset to 1)

\section*{First Section of the book}
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{First Section of the book}
\lipsum

.......
\end{document}

Answer 2

So I solved the issue looking at it from a different perspective. What I wanted in the end was to "swap odd/even margins" - so the first page (number 1) has larger left margin (in the book on the right side).

That's because I want to print just "a body" of a book, without cover etc.

This behaviour could be achieved by changing hmarginratio in geometry package (default is 2:3 for two side - documentation ref):

 \usepackage[hmarginratio=3:2]{geometry}

This answer here on the forum was really helpful. Thank you for all the help!