Manually setting the page number of specific pages to an arabic letter

Question

For some pages in a book document, I need to manually set the page number to an arabic alphabet character.

For example, The first page of my document should have آ as its page number, and second page should be ب and third page should be ج.

I don't need the page numbers to be automatically set as the pages with this format are 5 or 6 at most. So manually setting them would work but I can't find any command which allows me to set alphabet characters for a specific page.

Please note that, I don't want to set the page numbers to arabic numbers as suggested here with this command : \renewcommand{\thepage}{\arabic{page}}. I need to set the page number to an arabic alphabet character such as آ or د.

What I've Tried:

\renewcommand\thepage{آ} : I've tried doing this before every page that I want to manually set but as soon as I do another \renewcommand\thepage{ب} for the next page, then the first page number is overwritten to ب.
\setcounter{page}{آ}: this obviously won't work as it excepts a number and not an alphabet character.

So, is there a way to manually set the page number of specific pages to arabic alphabet characters?

Take a look to the link above (I think it answers your question. Is it?) — koleygr, Sep 02 '17 at 22:37
@koleygr, this is different as it need to set the page number to an arabic alphabet character and not a number. — Sobhan, Sep 02 '17 at 22:37
Ok.. Sorry thought it was a number... And I supposed to know what arabic numbers are ... — koleygr, Sep 02 '17 at 22:39
@Skillmon, that worked perfectly. Please provide an answer so I can accept it. — Sobhan, Sep 02 '17 at 22:42
I would suggest \let\oldpage\thepage then \xdef\thepage{whatever} and on next page \let\thepage\theoldpage and \stepcounter{page}{-1} if needed — koleygr, Sep 02 '17 at 22:44

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '17 at 23:10

The following example defines \arabicalph as number formatting command like \arabic or \alph (see latex.ltx). Then, the numbering style can be easily switched by \pagenumbering{arabicalph}:

\documentclass[a5paper]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{FreeSerif}

\makeatletter
\newcommand*{\@arabicalph}[1]{%
  \ifcase#1%
  \or
    آ%
  \or
    ب%
  \or
    ج%
  % ...
  \else
    \@ctrerr
  \fi
}
\newcommand*{\arabicalph}[1]{%
  \expandafter\@arabicalph\csname c@#1\endcsname
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{arabicalph}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Amazing! This answer also works great in a case when Table of Contents could have multiple pages and you want the page number to go to the next letter in the alphabet on each page. — Sobhan, Sep 03 '17 at 00:15

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 02 '17 at 22:42

2

Just use a \clearpage before the next page begins.

\documentclass[]{article}

\usepackage{blindtext}

\begin{document}
\renewcommand{\thepage}{Z}
\blindtext
\clearpage
\renewcommand{\thepage}{Y}
\blindtext
\clearpage
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\blinddocument
\end{document}

answered Sep 02 '17 at 22:42

Skillmon

60,462

2

Although this solution worked perfectly and I didn't ask for anything more in the question, I went with @Heiko's solution as it solved the case when Table of Contents could have multiple pages and you want the page number to go to the next letter in the alphabet on each page. – Sobhan Sep 03 '17 at 00:14
@Sobhan don't worry, I prefer his solution, too. – Skillmon Sep 03 '17 at 12:17

Manually setting the page number of specific pages to an arabic letter

What I've Tried:

2 Answers2