\pagenumbering

Synopsis:

\pagenumbering{number-style}

Specifies the style of page numbers, and resets the page number. The numbering style is reflected on the page, and also in the table of contents and other page references. This declaration has global scope so its effect is not delimited by braces or environments.

In this example, before the Main section the pages are numbered ‘a’, etc. Starting on the page containing that section, the pages are numbered ‘1’, etc.

\begin{document}\pagenumbering{alph}
  ...
\section{Main}\pagenumbering{arabic}
  ...

The argument number-style is one of the following (see also \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol).

arabic

Arabic numerals: 1, 2, …

roman

lowercase Roman numerals: i, ii, …

Roman

uppercase Roman numerals: I, II, …

alph

lowercase letters: a, b, … If you have more than 26 pages then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large’.

Alph

uppercase letters: A, B, … If you have more than 26 pages then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large’.

gobble

LaTeX does not output a page number, although it does get reset. References to that page also are blank. (This does not work with the popular package hyperref so to have the page number not appear you may want to instead use \pagestyle{empty} or \thispagestyle{empty}.)

Traditionally, if a document has front matter—preface, table of contents, etc.—then it is numbered with lowercase Roman numerals. The main matter of a document uses arabic. See \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter.

If you want to address where the page number appears on the page, see \pagestyle. If you want to change the value of page number then you will manipulate the page counter (see Counters).