How can I put the page numbers where I need them?

Question

I need to put the number for each page that is numbered at the top right hand corner of the document. Currently that condition is satisfied except for the first page of each chapter. That is, for the page that contains the title of the chapter the number is at the bottom (center) of the page. Can anyone help with this?

In the main LaTeX document classes that recognize a \chapter command, the first page of each chapter is given page style plain automatically, even if a different page style is in effect for "ordinary" pages. Do you use a package such as fancyhdr to create your custom "fancy" page style? If so, you could try issuing the command \thispagestyle{fancy} immediately after each \chapter directive. — Mico, May 18 '13 at 03:47
@Mico: Thanks for the information, but the problem was not solved. In fact nothing changed in the document. Also I am using the fancyhdr package. — Peter Palmer, May 18 '13 at 04:42
In that case, please edit your posting to provide a complete MWE. In particular, please indicate which document class you use and how you set up the look of the pages using fancyhdr. — Mico, May 18 '13 at 04:46
@Mico: What is MWE? I use the following: \documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{report}, \usepackage{fancyhdr}, \usepackage{tocloft}, \pagestyle{myheadings}. — Peter Palmer, May 18 '13 at 04:57
Sorry for the jargon -- MWE is short for minimum working example. Please indicate how you use the machinery of the fancyhdr package. The page style myheadings is provided by the document class. Incidentally, did you try the command \thispagestyle{myheadings} on the pages with chapter headings? — Mico, May 18 '13 at 05:05
@Mico: Thank you the problem is solved when I put \thispagestyle{myheadings} on the pages with the chapter headings. However, the first page of the bibliography did not change. Let me post that as a separate question. Thanks again. — Peter Palmer, May 18 '13 at 05:40
Related: How to remove page numbers from first page of chapters — Werner, May 18 '13 at 07:09
related: Why are pagenumbers centered with \pagestyle{headings} on \chapter{}'s first pages? — barbara beeton, May 18 '13 at 14:06

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered May 18 '13 at 07:28

By default the first page of each \chapter is set using the plain page style under the basic book and report document classes. To see why this is the case, consider the \chapter macro:

\newcommand\chapter{\if@openright\cleardoublepage\else\clearpage\fi
                    \thispagestyle{plain}%
                    \global\@topnum\z@
                    \@afterindentfalse
                    \secdef\@chapter\@schapter}

Note the setting of \thispagestyle{plain}. If you wish to change that, you can either create a new page style and update plain.

Creating a new style:

Using fancyhdr you can either use the default fancy page style or create your own. Here's how to create your own:

\fancypagestyle{main}{
  \fancyhf{}% Clear all headers/footers
  \fancyhead[R]{\thepage}% Page in Right header
  \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}% Header rule
  \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}% No footer rule
}

The usage with something like titleps is similar:

\newpagestyle{main}{
  \sethead{}% Left header
    {}% Centre header
    {\thepage}% Right header
  \setfoot{}{}{}% Clear footer
  \setheadrule{.4pt}% Header rule
  \setfootrule{0pt}% Not footer rule
}

Now you either insert this style on the chapter pages manually using

\chapter{My chapter}
\thispagestyle{main}

or you update this through a patch to be implemented globally. Here's a patch using etoolbox (place this in your document preamble):

\usepackage{etoolbox}% http://ctan.org/pkg/etoolbox
\patchcmd{\chapter}% <cmd>
  {plain}% <search>
  {main}% <replace>
  {}{}% <success><failure>

Update plain:

This is similar to the above solutions. For fancyhdr, use

\fancypagestyle{plain}{%
  % your new plain settings
}

For titleps use

\renewpagestyle{plain}{%
  % your new plain settings
}

The above changes slightly if you're using a two-side document setup. However, it changes drastically if you're using another document class.

This is a really great answer to a frequent question. – Paul Stanley May 18 '13 at 07:31 — Paul Stanley, May 18 '13 at 07:31

How can I put the page numbers where I need them?

1 Answers1