# “This page intentionally left blank” after \part

I sometimes use the following snippet to add a note to empty pages saying that they were intentionally left blank --- I'm not 100% sure where exactly it's from, but similar snippets can be found in various questions and answers, e. g. in How do I make pages which were “intentionally left blank”?:

\makeatletter
\def\cleardoublepage{\clearpage\if@twoside \ifodd\c@page\else
\mbox{}
\vspace*{\fill}
\begin{center}
\end{center}
\vspace{\fill}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage
\if@twocolumn\mbox{}\newpage\fi
\fi\fi}
\makeatother


It turns out that when using the book document class, empty pages inserted by \part do not carry this notice, so I'd like to share what I did to add the same notice to those, in the hopes that others may find it helpful.

• Can a page be considered blank if a phrase, e.g., the phrase "This page intentionally left blank", is written to it? ;-) Mar 7, 2021 at 20:51
• @UlrichDiez: Yes, with the exception of said phrase :) Mar 7, 2021 at 21:10
• @Ingmar Then the statement should be "This page intentionally left blank except for this phrase." Btw: How about a sheet of paper, one side holding "The statement on the other side of this sheet of paper is true", the other side holding "The statement on the other side of this sheet of paper is false" ? :-) Mar 7, 2021 at 21:15
• No need to state the obvious ... This is not to create a paradox or satisfy some perverted sense of formal logic, but to let people know that yes, there really is supposed to be an (almost) blank page there, and no mistake. IBM famously did this in all their manuals. You can still see it occasionally, although it's usually (and euphemistically) called "For your notes" these days ... Mar 7, 2021 at 22:01

The solution that worked for me was to redefine \@endpart (which is used internally by \part) in an analogous manner by replacing the \null it contains with the relevant code from the above snippet:

\makeatletter
\def\@endpart{\vfil\newpage\if@twoside \if@openright
\mbox{}
\vspace*{\fill}
\begin{center}
\end{center}
\vspace{\fill}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage\fi\fi
\if@tempswa\twocolumn\fi}
\makeatother


If you use the memoir class (a superset of book, report and article) then this will do it for you.

% partpageprob.tex  SE 586270
\documentclass{memoir}

\begin{document}
\nopartblankpage  % no blank page after a \part
\part{A PART}
% go to a special page after \part, putting text on the skipped page
\movetooddpage[\thispagestyle{empty}%

You might find memoirs methods of moving to another page useful in general.