Right and left pages?

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When you create printed manuals or PDF files, most authoring tools let you create either one common template master page for all pages, or separate master pages for right pages and left pages.

If your document will be printed double-sided and shipped in bound form, create both right pages and left pages.

If your document will be shipped electronically, create only one master page for all pages. Design this page as if it were a right page.

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Examples

A layout that has right pages and left pages typically has headers and footers aligned to the outer side:

A single-sided layout has only right pages:

Handling empty pages

Some authoring tools let you configure how they handle empty pages.

If you don’t distinguish between right pages and left pages, there won’t be any empty pages.

Empty pages can occur if you distinguish between right pages and left pages and tell one or more paragraph styles to start only on a right page. Usually, empty pages are left entirely empty. Optionally, you can continue the page number on the empty pages.

If you intentionally provide empty pages for readers to take notes, clearly mark these pages as notes pages.