Insert blank pages
Add empty pages where you need them.
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your file is never uploaded, and you can verify that in your browser's network tab. Verify it yourself: open your browser's network tab and watch. You will see one small request asking whether you have tasks left - a tool name and a hash, never the file.
What this does
This adds empty pages at the positions you choose. New pages match the size of their neighbour by default, so they print on the same paper as the rest of the document without anyone having to think about it.
Two situations account for almost all use. The first is double-sided printing, where a section that ends on an odd page pushes the next section onto the back of a sheet - a blank page fixes the parity. The second is leaving room: space for handwritten notes, for a signature, or for a page that will be scanned in later.
How it works
- Drop the PDF onto this page.
- Choose where the blanks go: at specific positions, after every page, or at the very end.
- For specific positions, list them and say whether the blank goes before or after each one.
- Set how many blanks to add at each position, and optionally force a paper size instead of matching.
- Press Insert pages and the download starts.
Matching the neighbouring page size is the default because a mismatched blank is worse than no blank at all: it makes a printer switch trays mid-job, or scale every other page to fit. Forcing a standard size is available under advanced options for the cases where you genuinely want it, such as adding an A4 notes page to a document of mixed sizes.
After every page is the option to reach for when preparing a single-sided document to be printed double-sided with the backs left empty - each original page ends up on the front of its own sheet.
Positions are interpreted against the original document, not against the growing one. Asking for blanks after pages 3 and 7 gives you blanks after the original pages 3 and 7, rather than after page 3 and then after whatever has been pushed into position 7 by the first insertion.
Bookmarks are shifted to follow their pages, so a table of contents still points at the right chapter after pages have been inserted ahead of it.
Questions people ask
- How do I make each chapter start on a right-hand page?
- Note the page each chapter starts on, then insert one blank before any chapter that currently starts on an even page. Printed double-sided, odd pages fall on the right, so this is what makes each chapter open on a fresh right-hand sheet.
- What size are the blank pages?
- By default they match the page next to them, which keeps a single-tray print job simple. You can force A4, Letter, Legal, A3 or A5 instead under advanced options.
- Will inserting pages break my table of contents?
- No. Bookmarks are moved along with the pages they point at, so they keep working after the insertion.
- Can I add pages only at the end?
- Yes, choose at the end as the mode and set how many. This is the quickest way to leave a few pages for notes at the back of a printed handout.