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From: krulwich@ils.nwu.edu (Bruce Krulwich)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: \special and \newpage in LaTeX
Message-ID: <2177@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu>
Date: 19 Jun 91 16:40:30 GMT
Sender: news@ils.nwu.edu
Reply-To: krulwich@ils.nwu.edu (Bruce Krulwich)
Organization: Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201
Lines: 20

Page 91 of the LaTeX book says in discussing \newpage:

        To generate a blank page, you must put some invisible
        text on it, such as an empty \mbox.

I've been including postscript into LaTeX documents, and it seems that a
\special (which includes postscript, such as \special{psfile=...} under DVIPS)
is not enough to force a blank page.  Thus, if I want a page with only a
postscript figure on it, I have to add an empty mbox.

This seems wrong -- it seems to me that a \special should be considered
"potential text" for the purposes of \newpage.

Has this been discussed before?  Is there a reason for it to be the way it is?


Bruce Krulwich
krulwich@ils.nwu.edu