How can I add a page break after a chapter title?

Question

I'd like to have a page that is mostly blank, but just shows the chapter number and the title, and maybe a small summary of the chapter, followed by white space... The actual sections will start on the following page. How can I accomplish this? Every search I've done yields people asking how to remove a page break.

I already know that the default for the book document class is to have a blank page before a new chapter starts, and I removed that because I don't want it. But how can I make the chapter name be the only thing on a page?

Answer 1

How about just issuing

\vspace*{\fill}\par
\pagebreak

immediately after \chapter{...}

Or, in the preamble you could redefine \chapter with something like

\usepackage{letltxmacro}
\LetLtxMacro{\oldchapter}{\chapter}
\renewcommand{\chapter}[2][]{\oldchapter[#1]{#2}\vspace{\fill}\par\pagebreak}

Answer 2

Since you also asked for a way to eventually produce a small summary for the chapter, I would suggest you the epigraph package to add this information; in the following example I defined a \mchapter command with the following syntax:

\mchapter[<Title for the ToC>]{<Title for the document>}[<Summary text>]

The first two arguments behave exactly as those of the standard \chapter command and the new third optional argument will contain the summary text typeset with the help of \epigraph; \clearpage is used at the end so that the following material will start in a new page:

\documentclass[openany]{book}
\usepackage{xparse}
\usepackage{epigraph}

\setlength\epigraphrule{0pt}
\renewcommand\epigraphflush{center}
\setlength\beforeepigraphskip{4\baselineskip}
\renewcommand\epigraphsize{\normalsize}
\setlength\epigraphwidth{0.6\textwidth}

\let\oldchapter\chapter
\NewDocumentCommand\mchapter{omo}
{
  \IfNoValueTF{#1}
  {\chapter{#2}}
  {\chapter[#1]{#2}}
  \IfNoValueTF{#3}
  {\clearpage}
  {\epigraph{#3}{\clearpage}}
}
\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\mchapter[A Title for the ToC]{First Chapter}[A brief summary for the first chapter; here we add some more text just to illustrate the effect of this optional argument]

\mchapter[B Title for the ToC]{Second Chapter}

\mchapter[C Title for the ToC]{Third Chapter}[A brief summary for the third chapter; here we add some more text just to illustrate the effect of this optional argument]

\end{document}

Answer 3

I'd be tempted to use the titlesec package for this.

\documentclass{report}

\usepackage{titlesec}                     % customize section headings
\usepackage{lipsum}

% custom chapter
\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
{\normalfont\Huge\bfseries}
{\LARGE\chaptertitlename~\thechapter}
{1pc}
{\vspace{1pc}%
\Huge}[\clearpage]

\begin{document}

% remove \clearpage from tableofcontents
% this just redefines \clearpage to nothing (locally)
\begingroup
\let\clearpage\relax
\tableofcontents
\endgroup

\chapter[for the toc]{Introduction}
\lipsum[1]

\chapter{Another chapter}
\lipsum[1]

\end{document}

Answer 4

Here is a way where you can use an xchapter environment for chapters that have a precis:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{xpatch}
\makeatletter
\xapptocmd{\@chapter}{\chpr@start}{}{}
\xapptocmd{\@schapter}{\chpr@start}{}{}

\newif\if@chapterprecis
\newenvironment{xchapter}
 {\global\@chapterprecistrue\chapter}
 {\chpr@finish}
\newenvironment{xchapter*}
 {\global\@chapterprecistrue\chapter*}
 {\chpr@finish}

\def\chpr@start{%
  \if@chapterprecis
    \quotation\small\itshape\expandafter\noindent\ignorespaces
  \else
    \newpage\@afterheading
  \fi}
\def\chpr@finish{%
  \if@chapterprecis
    \endquotation
  \else
  \fi
  \global\@chapterprecisfalse
  \newpage\@afterheading}
\makeatother

\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\begin{document}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\begin{xchapter*}{Introduction}
\kant*[1]
\end{xchapter*}
\kant

\chapter{Test}
\kant

\begin{xchapter}[In toc]{In text}
\kant*[1]
\end{xchapter}

\kant

\end{document}

The example shows that the arguments to xchapter follow the same rules as the normal \chapter command, which remains available and issues a \newpage as well. For unnumbered chapters you can use the xchapter* environment.