Skip to main content
A
Anonymous
February 22, 2020
Answered

epub conversion adding extra blank pages to ends of chapters

  • February 22, 2020
  • 6 replies
  • 13083 views

I can't figure out why this is happening. Another user posted about it in 2016, and the post was moved to the "epub forum" and was never answered. I have known of the (theoretical) existance of this forum, but seems like something changed on the website and we can't actually search for anything in that "forum" or post anything directly to it—even if we add the epub subject tag. But trying anyway.

 

The file is currently built in CC2018 and I have not really run into this before. The chapters are in a Book file. There is no overset text, nor extra returns or page breaks at the ends of the file. All text and objects are in a single thread in the documents.

 

When previewing the epub in iBooks there seems to be anywhere for 5 to 16 or so added blanks. looking at the HTML in the unzipped files these are divs with a uniquely numbered image container and a class, within a Basic Text Fram class. Like so:

<div class="_idGenObjectLayout-3">
<div id="_idContainer287" class="Basic-Text-Frame">
</div>
</div>
<div class="_idGenObjectLayout-3">
<div id="_idContainer288" class="Basic-Text-Frame">
</div>
</div>

I don't have any blank boxes in the files that I can find. 

Has anyone else figured out why the extra pages and how to avoid that?

I can removed them in the HTML code, but I would surely prefer not to have to. There ARE background colred pages in the document on other hidden layers (used in the print version) but these shoudn't be exporting at all. Seem's like it would be many more pages ifo that were the case.

 

Two perhaps related questions: 

1. What is the corrct choice for exporting a book with images to include "classes" or not to include. The default is to include and I've always done that. 

2. Why does an epub exported from a book file with multiple separate ID chapter files create another CSS for each chapter? These are mostly full of idGenObjectAttributes, but why couldn't those be all in one CSS? I believe they are needed for calling out the sizes of objects when they are are all different—I've selected Preserve Appearance and Relative to Text Flow for most images. This is a complex reflowable ebook and writing a single CSS myself would be impossible for me. But all these CSS docs are pretty unwieldly.

 

 

    Correct answer HSBurton

    Hi Sue,

     

    I'm having the same issue. How did you find these "empty boxes"? Similarly, how do you unzip an epub file to look at the code? The Adobe technical team does not know. Please help!

     

    Jessica


    Hello,

     

    So I was having a similar problem—when I produced reflowable epubs they were fine in Kindle Previewer but for iBooks all sorts of blank pages were added at the end, which were likely related to original smart reflow preferences or something.  I occasionally look at these support forums when I'm stuck at something but generally balk at going into the HDML/CSS code, and when I see an explanation with a screenshot of 15 "div" commands my eyes tend to mist over.  No disrespect to those who do this for a living, it should be stressed, but we all draw our lines somewhere.  Anyway, I found a script which will eliminate these troublesome hidden text frames that were padding my epub with all sorts of extra pages on the end.  It's called Delete Empty Text frames and is freely available here.  It worked for me, so hopefully it will be of some use to others. 

     

    Cheers,

     

    Howard 

    6 replies

    R
    Ruben Solér
    Inspiring
    February 21, 2025

    I just encountered a similar problem, but I also found the source of it. I got a blank page between all chapters in my EPUB3, but only in iBooks (the only other reader I tested with was Thorium to be fair).

     

    I had used margin-top:20vh; to "push" my chapter headings down on the page. This worked perfectly in Thorium, but had no effect in iBooks, except adding a blank page before each chapter title. I got the same result with 10vh, 5vh, 2em, 10px, 20px etc: In iBooks the chapter heading stays at the top, but I get a blank page preceding it.

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    February 21, 2025

    There basically is no vertical proportional spacing in EPUB, as there is only one "page" on which to base it and viewers vary in how they handle the arbitrary height of a virtual reader page. Almost any attempt to insert space using the relative methods (%, vh, etc.) will fail, and not always in a graceful way.

     

    The only consistent way to have page-top spacing in reflowable EPUB across the readers and platforms is to use file splitting plus a page break plus hard space above the element. You can juggle and use only some of these factors and have it work in some readers, but to have it be a universal "start chapter heading spaced down the page" effect, you have to use them all.

     

    A good example, though of how iBooks is almost a good, basic EPUB reader... except for a list of "better ideas" or "smarter behavior" that too many reader developers can't resist including. 🙂

    R
    Ruben Solér
    Inspiring
    February 24, 2025

    All my chapters were split with a page break, but no hard space (I'll try that next time!). I managed to achieve the desired result with padding-top:20vh, although I guess this might not work on some other viewers.

    S
    Sarayu
    Participant
    January 12, 2024

    I'm having a different problem, which i haven't seen here yet. I am getting a blnk page one time -- between the introduction and Chapter 1. I have tried every kind of workaround that i can think of, and have isolated the problem to the paragraph style for the first element of the new chapter -- the chapter number. When i remove the chapter number for chapter 1, then there is no blank page. But if i create a new paragraph style based on the original, i have the same problem. And every other chapter is fine. I think the problem is with the keep options, but have tried every variation, to no effect. And yes, i ran the text frame script, but that doesn't help. Anyone have any thoughts? Am out of ideas. 

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    January 12, 2024

    Funny, I am, right this moment, working on some deep technical details of exactly this subject (page breaks and subsequent page-top spacing)!

     

    What is the last paragraph before the new chapter page? Does it have any odd settings, or a significant amount of space below?

     

    Do you have Split EPUB defined for the Chapter heading style?

     

    Oh, and — what EPUB viewer are you using?

    S
    Sarayu
    Participant
    January 13, 2024
    Thank you very much, James! I really appreciate your help. Here are the
    answers to your questions. I was wondering.since it's only one blank page, I
    could probably just erase the html code for that one page in Calibre, though
    I don't know code well enough to know what to cut and what not. Here are the
    questions:

    What is the last paragraph before the new chapter page? Does it have any odd
    settings, or a significant amount of space below?

    It doesn't have any unusual settings, though it does have a lot of space
    after the last lines (most of a page). But I tried cutting out the last few
    paragraphs just to see if that was the problem, and I still got a blank
    page.

    Do you have Split EPUB defined for the Chapter heading style?

    Yes, I do have split epub checked in the chapter no. style.
    F
    Fab Dog
    Participating Frequently
    June 3, 2021

    My extra blank pages issue is not being caused by hidden frames, but by my images. I can't figure out the right combination of image size, image settings, and object export setting. Even small images tend to add extra space at the end (on Apple Books only by the way). Could the issue be with the image's actual size, not it's display box?

    A
    Anonymous
    June 17, 2021
    quote

    My extra blank pages issue is not being caused by hidden frames, but by my images. I can't figure out the right combination of image size, image settings, and object export setting. Even small images tend to add extra space at the end (on Apple Books only by the way). Could the issue be with the image's actual size, not it's display box?


    By @Fab Dog

    I don't know how that's happening. It's pretty tough to diagnose without seeing the code it is spitting out. 

    Are your images in line, in the flow of text?

     

    As for settings and sizes, it's taken me a long time to figure this out. You don't want to select "Use Existing Image for Graphic Objects" on export if your images are very large, as that will make your file size too big. Play around with the Object export settings for each image as this will produce slightly different results in the EPUB. But again, I don't think that's the issue with the extra pages. Yes, I think it was mainly an iBooks issue, but you can't really test it in every type of ereader, so it's good to fix it.

     

    Can you unzip the epub and look at what's happening in an html editor, like dreamweaver, or BBEdit? (or even in Text Edit) That would at least show you if there are extra divs at the bottoms of your chapters, and it may tell you what they are.

    Fab_Dog
    Fab_Dog
    Participant
    June 17, 2021

    Hi, Sue! Thank you so much for your help!

     

    My images are anchored ABOVE LINE, and I am not selecting the "Use Existing Image for Graphic Objects".

     

    When you say play around with the Object export setting, can you elaborate?

    I'm not that great with HTML, but I will look into your suggestion!

    Thanks again!

    mohammedh5489842
    mohammedh5489842
    Participant
    October 7, 2020

    The easiest solution, may God bless me for it, is to make the page break with a paragraph style that is not used in headings at all, and be a paragraph style only for the page break.

    H
    HSBurton
    Participating Frequently
    October 7, 2020
    Well, I don't think that would work well for me, because I've naturally
    split the epub using header paragraph styles that I've used in my NAV TOC
    and in-book TOC, so in order to do things that way it seems to me that I'd
    have to add a "dummy paragraph style" right before all of those, which
    seems far more trouble than it's worth to me, particularly given that, as I
    said, the script I'm using seems to do what I need perfectly well with a
    couple of clicks.

    More generally, however, I am certainly not claiming that I have found *the*
    solution or even the best solution, merely one that seems to work well for
    me and thought there might be others out there who might be having the same
    difficulties and appreciate it as well. Å chacun son goût.

    Regards,

    Howard
    rayek.elfin
    rayek.elfin
    Legend
    February 23, 2020

    You state that you are working on a complex reflowable epub in InDesign. Have you ever considered a dedicated epub tool like Jutoh instead? It is catered towards epub creation, while InDesign really is not (resulting in issues like yours). InDesign also hides the underlying content structure, while Jutoh exposes it, granting full control over the epub generation workflow.

     

    I moved away from InDesign for any reflowable epub work. It is just too fragile in my opinion.

    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Derek CrossCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 24, 2020

    That's interesting, what is the workflow if you have an InDesign document that you want to take into Jutoh?  

    A
    Anonymous
    February 22, 2020

    I may have found the issue with the extra pages. When the book was reflowed it somehow got out of the Master Text Frames on some pages but was still linked to the master text frames on others. This left a bunch of blank text frames on the pages behind the new frames with text in them. I've seen this happen before, but didn't equate it with adding pages in the epub. Too bad there isn't a script to locate all empty text boxes and delete them! (Or maybe there is?) I located as many as I could find and deleted and that seems to have done the trick.

      B
      billbuchanan
      Participant
      August 11, 2020

      I struggled with and worked around this identical problem by editing chapter files containing extra pages. I'd unzip my epub, then delete extra page related html; an abbreviated example shown below:

      </div>
      <div class="_idGenObjectLayout-1">
      <div id="_idContainer061">
      </div>
      </div>

      .

      .

      .
      <div class="_idGenObjectLayout-1">
      <div id="_idContainer071">
      </div>
      </div>

      I explain this to say thank you and ask if you've learned anything new related to this problem since your Feb 22, 2020 post.

      J
      Jessica5EF7
      Participant
      September 2, 2020

      Yes, Bill, 

      This is what I've done too. I think it's worthwhile if you notice this is happening to visually search through the InDD before conversion and eliminate all the empty boxes you can find. Saves some time (and possible messed up code in my case) over messing with the html. But yes, almost every book requires a little tweaking in my experience. 

       

      Nothing new to report on the extra box problem—if we want the text to actually reflow if we change master pages they need to have the master (primary) text frame, and this seems to cause the issue. I know no way around it.


      Hi Sue,

       

      I'm having the same issue. How did you find these "empty boxes"? Similarly, how do you unzip an epub file to look at the code? The Adobe technical team does not know. Please help!

       

      Jessica

      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices