Page numbering is the process of applying a sequence of numbers (or letters, or Roman numerals) to the pages of a book or other document. The number itself, which may appear in various places on the page, can be referred to as a page number or as a ''

folio The term "folio" () has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

''.
The Chicago Manual of Style, Sixteenth Edition
' (2003), pp. 32–33. Like other numbering schemes such as

chapter Chapter or Chapters may refer to: Books * Chapter (books), a main division of a piece of writing or document * Chapter book, a story book intended for intermediate readers, generally age 7–10 * Chapters (bookstore), Canadian big box bookstore ...

numbering, page numbers allow the

citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

of a particular page of the numbered document and facilitates to the reader to find specific parts of the document and to know the size of the complete text (by checking the number of the last page).

Numbering conventions

Even numbers usually appear on

verso ''Recto'' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. In double-sided printing, each leaf h ...

(left-hand) pages, while odd numbers appear on

recto ''Recto'' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. In double-sided printing, each leaf h ...

(right-hand) pages. In the printing industry, in cases where odd numbers appear on verso pages and even numbers on recto pages, this is referred to as ''non-traditional folios'' (in the past, it had been referred to as ''Chinese folios'', however this term has fallen out of favor in recent years). In books, some pages, known as ''blind folios'', of the

front matter Book design is the graphic art of determining the visual and physical characteristics of a book. The design process begins after an author and editor finalize the manuscript, at which point it is passed to the production stage. During productio ...

and

back matter Book design is the graphic art of determining the visual and physical characteristics of a book. The design process begins after an author and editor finalize the manuscript, at which point it is passed to the production stage. During production ...

are numbered but the numbers are not printed. Publishers are not consistent about how they number the pages of their books. Some publishers stick with the default numbering of the tool they are using, which is typically to number the first page of the front matter as 1 and all pages after that in a consecutive order. When publishers wish to distinguish between the front matter and the body, the initial title pages are blind folios, the front matter is numbered using lower-case

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

(i, ii, iii...) and the first page of the body or main content begins with 1. The title page of the body, if present, is a blind folio; similarly, any section title pages (e.g., when the body is broken into multiple parts), are blind folios. The first page of chapter one would then be numbered as page 3. The sixteenth edition of the ''

Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (''CMOS'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions (the most recent in 2024) have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publ ...

'' calls for the beginning of the text to begin with the Arabic number 1, while the front matter that precedes it is to be numbered with lower-case Roman numerals. If the front matter is extensive and a second half-title page is included, it is to be numbered as page 1 and its verso as page 2. If a part title is included, it is to be included in the same numbering as the text. Page numbers do not appear on part titles. Most citation systems call for the identification of the page number from which a quote or point is drawn. For example, such usage is specified in their citation formats of both the ''

'', and ''The

Bluebook ''The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'' is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of Law school in the United States, law schools in the United S ...

''. Some printed versions of the

Christian Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

, such as the

New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a translation of the Bible in American English. It was first published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches, the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirt ...

and the

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonical ...

, recommence page numbering with page 1 at the start of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

section, which follows directly after the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

Numbering by chapter

Guidelines for technical manuals, especially loose bound manuals expected to be updated, often recommend numbering pages by chapter. When numbering by chapter, page "3-2" is the second page of chapter 3, page "A-3" is the third page of Appendix A. Larger newspapers have page "numbers" that begin with a letter -- page "B3" is the third page of the second section.

Unique numbering schemes

In the book ''Humble Pi'' by mathematics communicator and YouTuber

Matt Parker Matthew Thomas Parker (born 22 December 1980) is an Australian recreational mathematics, recreational mathematician, author, comedian, YouTube personality and Science communication, science communicator based in the United Kingdom. His book ''H ...

, the book uses a page numbering scheme where the pages count backwards from 314 to 0, referencing the approximation of 3.14 for the

mathematical constant A mathematical constant is a number whose value is fixed by an unambiguous definition, often referred to by a special symbol (e.g., an Letter (alphabet), alphabet letter), or by mathematicians' names to facilitate using it across multiple mathem ...

pi (π).

Electronic documents

E-books An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

and other electronic documents published in a non- reflowable format such as

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

are normally paginated and numbered in the same way as their printed counterparts. While reading devices for reflowable documents such as

EPUB EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes stylized as ''ePUB''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smart ...

e-books may display page numbers, these numbers change from device to device depending on factors such as the size of the display and the selected font size. This makes them unsuitable for citation purposes. To remedy this problem,

Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, Audible audiobooks, and other digital media via wireless networking ...

e-books contain what are called "location numbers", that is, numbers in the margin of the electronic text that indicate where the corresponding page begins in the printed version of the book.

Manuscripts

codicology Codicology (; from French ''codicologie;'' from Latin , genitive , "notebook, book" and Greek , ''-logia'') is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. ...

, each physical sheet (, abbreviated ''fol.'' or ''f.'') of a manuscript is numbered and the sides are referred to as and ', abbreviated as ''r'' and ''v'' respectively. This results in designations like ''5r'' (the front side of the fifth sheet) and ''8v'' (the back side of the eighth sheet).

References

External links

When did books get page numbers?
at Slate.com {{Typography terms Book arts Book design Typography Publishing Printing