Why do some books have the last few pages totally blank?

5 thoughts on “Why do some books have the last few pages totally blank?”

1. hoot hoot says:

   May 26, 2011 at 1:21 pm

   In printing, the pages of a book are actually printed on a huge sheet of paper and then folded up prior to being cut… In some older books, you’ll find some pages that have not been cut, and so you have to tear them to read what’s inside…

   The group of pages (usually 16 pages) is called a signature. If you look straight down onto the top of a hardcover book, you’ll see groups of pages… a book is made up of several signatures.

   Sometimes the author hasn’t written enough to fill all the pages of a signature, and this may result in some blank pages at the end of the book.

2. David A says:

   May 26, 2011 at 1:21 pm

   In the old days when books were only published in hardback, there developed a tradition to provide some extra space in margins and some empty pages in front and back for readers to write notes and thoughts about the book. This was a smart thing to do for nonfiction but apparently readers wanted that freedom for novels as well.

   In the paperback age, the number of blank pages seems to have decreased, sometimes missing completely. I’m not sure if that’s the current reason for them.

   This may well be only one of the reasons, if so, I’m not familiar with the others.

3. Hydrogen says:

   May 26, 2011 at 1:21 pm

   some book intends to leave a blank 5-10 pages, it’s because some information on the book is needed to be written, or somewhat a little important and should be remember you can find a medical book with 12 blank pages at the back or in every chapter.

4. bbycakes says:

   May 26, 2011 at 1:21 pm

   I don’t know but I know what you mean, waste of paper or what?! 😉

5. classmate says:

   May 26, 2011 at 1:21 pm

   You’ve probably noticed that in hardback books, not paperbacks, right? A hardback book is generally made of groups of pages known as signatures. Typically there are 32 pages in a signature, 16 in a half signature, eight in a quarter signature, etc. A signature is created by printing 32 pages worth of text on separate sections of a large sheet of paper, then folding and cutting that large sheet to make what looks like a thin, 32-page booklet. Then a bunch of signatures get bound together to form a whole book. Sometimes the number of pages of text in a book is not enough to fill up the last signature, so several pages at the end get left blank. (This doesn’t usually happen with paperbacks, which are manufactured with a different printing and binding technique.)

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