Adding a cover page sometimes produces an additional blank page

Aspose.Words Product Family
1

I am trying to add a cover page to my document. depending on how the document is formatted sometimes an additional blank page is created. I think headers and footers have something to do with this so i check

Is there a better way so that a single page is always added to the beginning of my document

public static Document AddCoverPage(Document doc)
{
    DocumentBuilder documentBuilder = new DocumentBuilder(doc);

    documentBuilder.MoveToDocumentStart();

    if (!documentBuilder.PageSetup.DifferentFirstPageHeaderFooter)
    {
        HeaderFooter primaryHeader = doc.FirstSection.HeadersFooters[HeaderFooterType.HeaderPrimary];
        if (primaryHeader != null && primaryHeader.ToString(SaveFormat.Text).Trim() != string.Empty)
        {
            documentBuilder.InsertBreak(BreakType.SectionBreakNewPage);
        }
    }

    Document coverPageDocument = new Document();
    DocumentBuilder coverPageDocumentBuilder = new DocumentBuilder(coverPageDocument);

    // Find the first page and add a new page before it
    Section newSection = coverPageDocumentBuilder.Document.FirstSection;
    newSection.PageSetup.RestartPageNumbering = false;
    newSection.PageSetup.SectionStart = SectionStart.NewPage;
    newSection.PageSetup.DifferentFirstPageHeaderFooter = false;

    // Create cover page
    Run pageLeftBlankTextRun = new Run(coverPageDocument, "This Page Intentionally Left Blank");
    pageLeftBlankTextRun.Font.Size = 10;
    pageLeftBlankTextRun.Font.Color = Color.Black;
    newSection.Body.Paragraphs[0].AppendChild(pageLeftBlankTextRun);

    //WriteDebug(documentBuilder, coverPageDocumentBuilder);

    coverPageDocumentBuilder.MoveToDocumentEnd();
    coverPageDocumentBuilder.Document.AppendDocument(documentBuilder.Document, ImportFormatMode.KeepDifferentStyles);

    return coverPageDocumentBuilder.Document;
}
2

@way2wyrd

To ensure that a single cover page is always added to the beginning of your document without creating an additional blank page, you can modify your implementation to handle headers and footers more effectively. The issue of an extra blank page often arises due to the presence of headers or footers in the document.

Here’s a refined version of your AddCoverPage method that addresses this issue:

public static Document AddCoverPage(Document doc)
{
    DocumentBuilder documentBuilder = new DocumentBuilder(doc);
    documentBuilder.MoveToDocumentStart();

    // Check if the first section has a header or footer
    if (doc.FirstSection.HeadersFooters.Count > 0)
    {
        // Insert a section break to ensure the cover page is separate
        documentBuilder.InsertBreak(BreakType.SectionBreakNewPage);
    }

    // Create a new document for the cover page
    Document coverPageDocument = new Document();
    DocumentBuilder coverPageDocumentBuilder = new DocumentBuilder(coverPageDocument);

    // Set up the cover page
    coverPageDocumentBuilder.InsertParagraph();
    coverPageDocumentBuilder.Writeln("This is the Cover Page");
    coverPageDocumentBuilder.InsertBreak(BreakType.PageBreak); // Optional: Add a page break after the cover page

    // Append the cover page to the original document
    documentBuilder.InsertDocument(coverPageDocument, ImportFormatMode.KeepSourceFormatting);

    return documentBuilder.Document;
}

Key Changes:

  1. Header/Footer Check: The method checks if the first section has any headers or footers. If it does, a section break is inserted to prevent overlapping content.
  2. Cover Page Creation: A new document is created for the cover page, and content is added to it.
  3. Appending the Cover Page: The cover page is appended to the original document, ensuring that it is treated as a separate section.

This approach should help you avoid the issue of an additional blank page while ensuring that your cover page is always added correctly at the beginning of the document.

For more information on managing sections and headers/footers in Aspose.Words, you can refer to the official documentation on Working with Sections and Working with Headers and Footers.

Sources:

[1]: Working with Sections in C#|Aspose.Words for .NET
[2]: Working with Headers and Footers

3

@way2wyrd Could you please attach your input and output documents here for testing? We will test the scenario on our side and provide you more information.

4

@alexey.noskov

Here is a doc that shows the behaviour
agreement.docx (80.5 KB)

5

@way2wyrd Thank you for additional information. Please try using the following code to add the cover page to your documents:

public static Document AddCoverPage(Document doc)
{
    // Create a new document for the cover page
    Document coverPageDocument = (Document)doc.Clone(true);
    // To preserve headers/footer clone the whole document and remove all content excep headers/footer of first section.
    while (coverPageDocument.Sections.Count > 1)
        coverPageDocument.LastSection.Remove();
    coverPageDocument.FirstSection.Body.RemoveAllChildren();
    coverPageDocument.EnsureMinimum();
    DocumentBuilder coverPageDocumentBuilder = new DocumentBuilder(coverPageDocument);

    // Set up the cover page
    coverPageDocumentBuilder.Writeln("This is the Cover Page");

    // Append the cover page to the original document
    doc.FirstSection.PageSetup.SectionStart = SectionStart.NewPage;
    coverPageDocument.AppendDocument(doc, ImportFormatMode.UseDestinationStyles);

    return coverPageDocument;
}

The code creates a separate section for cover page.