TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:This page left blank From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Thu, 12 Jun 1997 12:17:31 -0500
The origin of the phrase "this page intentionally left
blank" probably lies in traditional publishing: When you
send a "printer's dummy" (more politely, a mockup) of your
camera-ready copy to the printer, you mark all the blank
pages this way so that the printer knows that you intended
the page to be blank. You can't expect the film stripper at
a busy printer to take the time to figure out what goes
where, and how, unless you provide instructions. The best
workers will figure it out, but even they miss sometimes if
you're in a hurry. With modern phototypesetting, "this page
intentionally blank" tells the stripper that the blank
isn't an accident; you'd be amazed at how often a graphic
fails to print because someone selected "send to back" to
facilitate editing, then forgot to undo the change.
People being what we are, this practice probably became a
tradition that has persisted to this day, without anyone
remembering why "it's always been done that way". Another
very good possibility is that some harried printer, who had
done an otherwise fine job, accidentally left this note to
the stripper on the film (i.e., forgot to mask it out)...
and there the words have remained ever since. Somebody
probbably saw it, said "hey, what a neat idea", and another
tradition began.
I most often leave blanks at the end of our scientific
reports (rarely long enough to need chapters) when the
number of pages per sheet that our printer uses doesn't
match the number we sent; if we don't provide an even
multiple of 4 pages, the unused portion of the final
signature remains blank because this is cheaper than asking
the printer to tip in a 2-page insert on a single sheet of
paper (I haven't yet figured out how to insert a 1 page
insert and avoid the blank backside of the page). I usually
leave the blanks blank, but with a larger book, I'd
certainly include the page number and headers/footers.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
