Blank pages and fold-out graphics

["Nyman, Rikki" <Rikki -dot- Nyman -at- ALLIEDSIGNAL -dot- COM>]

The subject of blank pages came up last week at our "standards" meeting.
 Because so much of our documentation is produced for the military, we
have used the "this page left blank" to account for each page.

Because we have to account for each page, and our documents are often
produced very quickly, our standard for page numbering has eroded and
become rather willy-nilly.  I was raised to believe in the flag, apple
pie, and the immutable law of odd pages  on the right, even on the left.

However, we have oversize engineering diagrams and strip charts z-folded
into the document.  When a fold-out page occurs on the right with an odd
page number, it may appear blank on its back side, or the writer may put
a page number on it.  Some writers leave it with no number at all, but
number the following page (on the right) with an even number.  The
result is every writer doing something different --

My preferred option would be to place all like documents (e.g. drawings)
in a appendix, and send the user there.   (This is what they did in the
olden days before they started using computers here.  It is the elegant
-- and practical -- solution, I think.)  Most of the writers here want
to incorporate everything into the body of the document where it is
called out.

What do you all think?  I came from a software background, and we had
very few odd pages -- nothing like aerospace engineers are able to
generate.  I have not found any references (CMS, GPO Style Manual) that
address this.

Rikki



 ----------
From: Jill Burgchardt
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Re: This page blank...
Date: Thursday, April 30, 1998 9:52AM

I have a similar situation.  I'm about to release a manual that is
currently 22
chapters long. I know that 5 more chapters will be added over the next
two
years.  The chapters will be inserted between existing chapters.

Due to printing costs (inhouse distribution) we don't want to reprint
the 22
chapters that are complete when the new chapters are added.  We also
don't want
to tack the new chapters on out of sequence with how they'll be used.
Chapters
are numbered individually with a chapter number prefix.

So, here's the option we're considering:

Insert a page with a chapter number for future sections.  The page,
front and
back, would include appropriate headers and footers for the chapter.
The body
text on either side of the page would say:

        This chapter reserved for future use.

The alternatives are adding chapters out of logical order or using some
altered
numbering scheme (such as 16a.1 between 16 and 17).  Reprinting
following
chapters with new chapter numbers is not an option.

Comments or suggestions?

Jill Burgchardt
jburgcha -at- pestilence -dot- itc -dot- nrcs -dot- usda


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