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Disabling Empty Pages

You can use empty pages to ensure that your chapters always start on a right (odd) page when creating printed output. See Using Empty Pages.

If you do not want to have an empty page before certain chapters, the simplest solution is to use a page layout that does not include an empty page in it. That way, your new chapters will start either on a right page or on a left page, whichever it comes to first.

However, let's say that you want to use a page layout that includes an empty page, but you want to specify that certain chapters should not have an empty page before them. To accomplish this, you can disable the empty pages for those chapters.

How to disable empty pages

Make sure the Project Organizer is open. By default, the Project Organizer is located on the left side of the interface in an accordion structure with the Content Explorer, unless you have previously moved it and saved the new layout. You may have to click the Project Organizer bar to bring it into view.
Double-click the TOCs folder.
Double-click the TOC that you plan to use for the printed output.

The TOC Editor opens to the right.
Select the entry in the TOC where you want to a new chapter to start, but you do not want to force an empty page before it.
In the local toolbar, click .
Click the Printed Output tab.
In the Chapters section, click the down arrow in the field Auto-end on 'left' page and select Disabled.

Note: You should already have completed the other fields in this section in order to specify a chapter break. See Specifying Chapter Breaks and Page Layouts.
Click OK.
Now select the entry in the TOC where the previous chapter starts. You need to disable the empty page for that entry as well.

example

Let's say your outline TOC looks like this.

Suppose that, for each entry that signifies the start of a chapter (e.g., Welcome, Chapter 1 Start, Chapter 2 Start, Chapter 3 Start, Chapter 4 Start), you are using a page layout that includes an empty page. However, you want to override that setting for Chapter 3. In other words, your page layout would ordinarily force an empty page at the end of Chapter 2 to ensure that Chapter 3 starts on a right (odd) page. But if you don't want it to do that, you would disable the empty page for the entry where Chapter 3 starts (in this example, the "Chapter 3 Start" entry). That is what you have already accomplished with the steps above. But now you also need to do this for the "new chapter" entry before it (in this example, "Chapter 2 Start").
Repeat steps 5-8 for that entry.
Press CTRL+S or click to save your work.

Note: When it comes to associating page layouts with entries in an outline TOC, it is important to understand the meaning of the word "chapter" in the Properties dialog. In that dialog, a "chapter" is simply the designation for a new portion of content that will use a particular page layout. It does not mean a chapter in the traditional sense of a manual. For example, if you have a title page, a TOC, 10 chapters, and an index in your manual, each one of those might be considered a separate chapter as far as the dialog is concerned, because you are creating a chapter break with a particular page layout specified at each of those locations in the outline TOC. Therefore, although you only have 10 chapters in the traditional meaning of the word, you might have 13 chapters as far as the dialog is concerned (one for the title page, one for the TOC, one for each traditional chapter, and one for the index).