Two-page view in Word, shouldn't the first page be on the right?

"The problem here is that the ""two page view"" you're using is just a two-page zoom, not a final print layout.

I would recommend putting the blank page in for your reviewing, and then take it out just before print time."

"Apparently,

...if you have enabled either ""Mirror margins"" or ""Different odd and even"" headers/footers, Print Preview (but no other view) will show facing pages.

(source).

So, it doesn't work in ""normal"" two page view. Rather annoying indeed..."

"A couple of suggestions:

To make sure your document is breaking in the places you want, always make sure your new section begins on an odd page. You can easily see this in two-page view in Word. If it's breaking on an even page, enter a manual page break (Ctrl Enter) on the page before.
If you want to see true double-sided, save the document in PDF format. In Adobe Acrobat ver. 8, choose View > Page Display > Two-Up. You will see your page 1 by itself, followed by page 2 on the left and 3 on the right.

I do agree with you: such a basic function should be part of Word. But that's Microsoft...

Steven"

"I have an intriguing addition to this Q & A. I have spent a humungous amount of time trying to find the right answer by trying different section breaks, finally hitting upon the Odd (or Right Hand) section break solution set forth above. I had the whole 300 page novel laid out, looking real nice with sequentially changing headers for different chapters, with the first page of each chapter being the right hand page, and different page number styles using lower case roman numerals for the introductory pages, and arabic numbers for the main text. Which worked fine, as long as the last page of a chapter ended on a left hand or even numbered page.

At this point I needed a half blank page. (There are two kinds of blank pages in Word and when you are looking at a lot of pages the eye sometimes becomes weary and fails to note this: (1) the back side of a page with printing on it, which is a half page, and (2) a full page front and back. Word can do either, provided you enter the right kind of section break. Which is another long story and not the point I want to make now, a point for which I have no answer. (So I continue.)

So as to not lose my work, after I had gone thru 300 pages for the 10th time (because every time you change the page sequence at the beginning, the whole document changes and headers and footers go crazy), I made a copy of my novel and worked on that. Problem solved. It printed fine. So then I went back to the original, because I had lost some header and footer settings in working on the changes on the copy, and made the odd page correction above.

But lo and behold, now the original document would not print! And I have gone crazy trying to find out why. The best advice I can give is one I read months ago. Bite the bullet and hire someone who knows what they are doing."

"Some problems with blank page insertion are:

1) Odd pages become even, and so on. This has a dramatic effect on headers and footers when the blank page is removed.

2) ""First page"" header and footer configuration is now confused. You can disable this and use section breaks instead. Not sure what happens when page is deleted and section break is removed however.

Paul"