[XeTeX] consternation and confusion - xelatex is generating a blank page in the middle of my document

[L J Davies]

I think the problem is caused by the center environment within which you
have set the longtable. Longtable usually sets centred by default, so you do
not need this environment in any case. If you comment out the \begin{center}
and \end{center} calls then the document compiles without the extra page.
The longtable package provides two lengths, \LTleft and \LTright, which you
can use to adjust the horizontal position of the table.

If you do want to use the center environment then another way to set the
document is to adjust the \bottomfraction parameter which controls how much
of the bottom  of a page LaTeX reserves for floats. I found that setting it
to 0.2, using the command \renewcommand\bottomfraction{0.2} worked in this
case.

The \backmatter command at the end of your document does not interfere with
either of these two options.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Lars


-----Original Message-----
From: xetex-bounces at tug.org [mailto:xetex-bounces at tug.org] On Behalf Of
Michiel Kamermans
Sent: 11 November 2009 21:58
To: XeTeX Mailing List
Subject: [XeTeX] consternation and confusion - xelatex is generating a blank
page in the middle of my document

Hi,

While compiling my book I've apparently run into a magical sequence of 
characters for xetex, which leads to it generating an entirely blank 
page in the middle of my content, between a paragraph ending "[...] in 
the following table:" and the actual table.

If I stick dummy text in, or remove some text, so that the page before 
the blank one has more or less content, no blank page is generated and 
the table either immediately follows the paragraph, or is spread over 
the two (it's a longtable, so it just gets snipped in half neatly).

I've put my TeX file and xelatex (two pass) generated PDF file on 
http://pomax.nihongoresources.com/downloads//temp/ in case someone 
canfigure out what on earth is going on, because I can't figure it out.

While I can always rephrase the text on the preceding page just enough 
to effect TeX not generating that blank page, this problem is too 
curious to want to solve the quick and dirty way: what is going on here? O_O

- Mike "Pomax" Kamermans
nihongoresources.com