perfect Word document then try saving as a PDF or exporting to a PDF-the two docs change

Thanks, but it didn't seem to be any help or completely address my particular issue. I had to go another route and recreate an entirely new manuscript with a new template. Then the pages were perfect, and so was the PDF. I think overall, it was the many iterations and versions of the original that somehow became corrupt. But making a new document not a Save AS from a previous version fixed the problem. A week-long work in itself, but then I had wasted many hours and days fixing and refixing the same problems over and over to remedy it and it never worked.

Rather than adding blank pages manually (if that is what you have been doing), insert an Odd Page section break. Doing so will ensure that the next section starts on an odd-numbered page, even if page numbering isn't restarted.

Note that you can change the type of section after you have inserted a section break. Click inside the new section and open the Page Setup dialog box (for example by double-clicking on the vertical ruler). On the Layout tab, change the "Section start" option.

For more on creating a front matter, see Suzanne S. Barnhill's article at http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/FrontMatterRibbon.htm.

Thanks for the feedback. Your response was not the issue.

I needed continuous numbering for the book from page one first chapter throughout. So what happened was I always used the NEXT PAGE break for each chapter page end, also making sure that the odd page ends had a blank as the next one (ex. chapter ends on pg 61 add an extra page (using a next page break) for the next chapter to begin on pg 63). But when I saved it as a PDF, some (Not all) of those breaks changed to odd or even which then threw off the page numbers, some had more blank pages between, and some began re-counting in the middle of the book from 1. Not what I wanted.

Also, I wish there was a better tutorial for creating page numbers for the front matter, the book body, and after book matter. I have watched twenty or more videos, and none quite work perfectly. The big problem is that all formatting goes wonky once you change a header or footer (odd and even pages- different) or try to repaginate a section like for the front matter. I try to use the continuous numbers tab in a chapter section, and sometimes it works, picking up the last page number and continuing. At others, it loses its mind. But then so do I lose it.

If the section breaks have been inserted so that you can restart the page numbering at different places in the document, note that Word will add blank "filler" pages, if necessary, to ensure that odd-numbered pages are right-hand pages and that even-numbered pages are left-hand pages (by publishing convention). These additional pages will not display in Print Layout view, but you should see them in the preview at File > Print.

Saving / printing to pdf is essentially a print operation with a different printer driver.

See Why has my page layout changed when I open my document on a different machine? by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP

Why a sample file is important for troubleshooting. How to do it.