Page Layout ⇒ Unwanted blank pages at start

[rhysy]

I changed my thesis title page following an example on the internet somewhere and now latex insists on creating 2 blank pages before the title (even if I change the title page back). I didn't change the header at all, only the title page. The rest of the document is fine. The code is :

\documentclass[a4paper]{book}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{wrapfig}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage{subfigure}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{longtable}
\setlength{\LTcapwidth}{17cm}
\usepackage[top=2.5cm, bottom=2.5cm, left=2.5cm, right=2.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{placeins}
\usepackage[footnotesize,bf]{caption}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{float}
\setlength{\abovecaptionskip}{0pt}
\setlength{\belowcaptionskip}{0pt}
\begin{document}

\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}
\title{
\hrule\vspace{0.5cm}
\huge{\sc{\bfseries{The Virgo Cluster Through The AGES}}}\\[0.5cm]
\hrule\vspace{1.2cm}
\normalsize{\emph{by}}\\[1cm]
\large{Rhys Taylor} \\[3cm]
\large{\sc{A Thesis Submitted to Cardiff University \\ for
the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy}}\\[10cm]
\normalsize{August 2010}
}
\author{}
\date{}
\maketitle
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}

\end{document}

I get no errors or warnings at all, the only output to the console is

latex TitleTest.tex
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.4.5)
(./TitleTest.tex
LaTeX2e <2001/06/01>
Babel <v3.7h> and hyphenation patterns for american, french, german, ngerman, n
ohyphenation, loaded.
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/book.cls
Document Class: book 2001/04/21 v1.4e Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/bk10.clo))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/psnfss/times.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/graphicx.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/keyval.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/graphics.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/trig.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/config/graphics.cfg)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/dvips.def)))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/wrapfig.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/rotating.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/ifthen.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/subfigure.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/amsfonts/amssymb.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/amsfonts/amsfonts.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/tools/longtable.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/geometry.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/config/geometry.cfg))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/placeins.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/caption/caption.sty
`subfigure' package detected
`rotating' package detected
) (/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/float.sty) (./TitleTest.aux)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/psnfss/ot1ptm.fd) [1] [2]
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/amsfonts/umsa.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/amsfonts/umsb.fd) [1] (./TitleTest.aux) )
Output written on TitleTest.dvi (3 pages, 792 bytes).
Transcript written on TitleTest.log.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi Rhys,

welcome to the board!
If you use the titlepage environment, you don't need the commands \maketitle, \author, \date, \title. I removed it here, without showing the preamble again:

Code: Select all

\begin{document}

\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}
\hrule\vspace{0.5cm}
\huge{\sc{\bfseries{The Virgo Cluster Through The AGES}}}\\[0.5cm]
\hrule\vspace{1.2cm}
\normalsize{\emph{by}}\\[1cm]
\large{Rhys Taylor} \\[3cm]
\large{\sc{A Thesis Submitted to Cardiff University \\ for
the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy}}\\[10cm]
\normalsize{August 2010}
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}

\end{document}

Please use the code environment when you post source code in the forum.

Stefan

[torbjorn t.]

Please put examples in the code-tag.

The book-class will automatically place the maketitle on a page of its own, so the titlepage-environment its unnecessary. This compiles fine.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[a4paper]{book}
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage[top=2.5cm, bottom=2.5cm, left=2.5cm, right=2.5cm]{geometry} 

\author{} 
\date{}
\title{\centering
\hrule\vspace{0.5cm}
\huge{\sc{\bfseries{The Virgo Cluster Through The AGES}}}\\[0.5cm]
\hrule\vspace{1.2cm}
\normalsize{\emph{by}}\\[1cm]
\large{Rhys Taylor} \\[3cm]
\large{\sc{A Thesis Submitted to Cardiff University \\ for
the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy}}\\[10cm]
\normalsize{August 2010}
}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\end{document}

Edit: Too late ...

[rhysy]

Thanks for the quick responses - works perfectly. Sorry I did not see the code environment tab, even though it's staring me in the face now !

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Something else, that you might not be aware as a new user: if a problem has been solved, you should mark the topic as solved by editing the first post and choosing the checkmark as topic symbol.

Stefan