duodecimal page number

Question

I would like to have page numbers in my document written in base 12. Here's an MWE

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[paperheight=1.8in, textheight=0.8in]{geometry}

\newcommand{\sirdot}{$\odot$}
\newcommand{\apple}{$\Delta$}

\begin{document}

The duodecimal numbers:
\begin{center}
1, 2, \ldots, 8, 9, \sirdot,  \apple, 10, 11, \ldots, 19, 1\sirdot,
1\apple, 20, 21, \ldots, \apple 9, \apple\sirdot, \apple\apple, 100 \ldots
\end{center}

\setcounter{page}{10}
Set page counter to 10, so this should be page \sirdot.
\newpage
This should be page \apple.
\newpage
This should be page 10.

\end{document}

image of page 10

Why those particular symbols for 10 and 11? See http://www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/sam/duodecimal/ssegm.pdf.

My document is unlikely to need three digit page numbers, which may allow for inelegant hack solutions.

Extra question: \sirdot seems to appear just a little too low on the line.

Related question: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/25939/typesetting-babylonian-numerals — doncherry, Jun 09 '12 at 15:16
Related question: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/17705/change-the-base-of-the-numeration — lockstep, Jun 09 '12 at 16:16
Error in your PDF: in the multiplication table on page 5, column 2, line sirdot should be 18, not 19 (the whole column 2 must be even numbers!) — Zak, Dec 19 '23 at 20:21
@Zak Thanks. This is just an mwe for the question, so the error doesn't appear anyplace it matters. — Ethan Bolker, Dec 19 '23 at 21:52

egreg · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-16T15:35:45.793

With expl3 it's quite easy (and there's no limit on numbers, other than the usual 2147483647, the maximum number in TeX)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xparse}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\NewDocumentCommand{\basetwelve}{m}
  { \duodec_convert:n { #1 } }

\tl_new:N \l_duodec_string_tl
\cs_new_protected:Npn \duodec_convert:n #1
  {
   \tl_set:Nx \l_duodec_string_tl { \int_to_base:nn { #1 } { 12 } }
   \tl_replace_all:Nnn \l_duodec_string_tl { A } { $\odot$ }
   \tl_replace_all:Nnn \l_duodec_string_tl { B } { $\Delta$ }
   \tl_use:N \l_duodec_string_tl
 }
\ExplSyntaxOff

\renewcommand{\thepage}{\basetwelve{\arabic{page}}}

\begin{document}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\int_step_inline:nnnn { 1 } { 1 } { 145 }
  { \basetwelve{#1} ~ }
\ExplSyntaxOff


\end{document}

The code is in the preamble and after it is a test for showing that the numbers are correctly produced in the requested form.

enter image description here

The \int_to_base:nn function produces A for 10 and B for 11, so we have to replace the letters with the symbols.

The input \basetwelve{123456} produces 5∆540.

What do we do? We define a robust command, \basetwelve, that will wrap the call to the conversion, performed by \duodec_convert:n. This command takes as input something that ultimately expands to a decimal number (for instance \arabic{page} and stores away the number converted into duodecimal form, with digits 0123456789AB, through the function \int_to_base:nn. Then we replace all A's with $\odot$ and all B's with $\Delta$ and deliver the so converted token list.

When LaTeX wants to write a page number to the .aux file, it will expand \thepage, getting \basetwelve{\arabic{page}}. Since \basetwelve is robust (all commands defined with \NewDocumentCommand are), it will be written untouched. Instead \arabic{page} will be expanded to the current page number, so what's written in the .aux file is, for instance, \basetwelve{23}. When this is used by \pageref the conversion will be performed, giving 1∆.

This is as short as Werner's and more general (though a little harder to read since it relies on some deeper primitives). I'll accept it instead. You say elsewhere that Werner's doesn't work - but it does in my MWE. I'll incorporate his \smash and \raisebox. — Ethan Bolker, Jun 09 '12 at 23:42
@EthanBolker: Using a \label anywhere in your document would cause problems. \label writes to an external .aux file, and writes out \thepage (in addition to other things). — Werner, Jun 09 '12 at 23:53
This solution doesn't work for me. I don't know why. Do I have to use any specific package? — Pedro G. Mattos, Aug 16 '19 at 15:02
@PedroG.Mattos Something has changed in the meantime. See the edit. — egreg, Aug 16 '19 at 15:35

lockstep · Answer 2 · 2012-06-09T16:06:54.260

Here's a solution using the fmtcount package plus a new \duodecimal macro that is modelled on fmtcount's \hexadecimal. (Actually, it's an example of cargo-cult programming: I basically took the fmtcount macro set and replaced "hexa" with "duo", "16" with "12", and "65536" [16^4] with "20736" [12^4].)

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[paperheight=1.8in, textheight=0.8in]{geometry}

\newcommand{\sirdot}{$\odot$}
\newcommand{\apple}{$\Delta$}

\usepackage{fmtcount}

\makeatletter

\newcommand*{\@@duodecimal}[1]{\ifcase#10\or1\or2\or3\or4\or5\or
6\or7\or8\or9\or $\odot$\or $\Delta$\fi}

\newcommand*{\@duodecimal}[1]{%
\@DT@padzeroestrue
\@DT@loopN=5\relax
\@strctr=\@DT@loopN
\whiledo{\@strctr<\c@padzeroesN}{0\advance\@strctr by 1}%
\@strctr=20736\relax
\@DT@X=#1\relax
\loop
\@DT@modctr=\@DT@X
\divide\@DT@modctr by \@strctr
\ifthenelse{\boolean{@DT@padzeroes}\and\(\@DT@modctr=0\)\and
\(\@DT@loopN>\c@padzeroesN\)}{}{\@@duodecimal\@DT@modctr}%
\ifnum\@DT@modctr=0\else\@DT@padzeroesfalse\fi
\multiply\@DT@modctr by \@strctr
\advance\@DT@X by -\@DT@modctr
\divide\@strctr by 12\relax
\advance\@DT@loopN by -1\relax
\ifnum\@strctr>1
\repeat
\@@duodecimal\@DT@X}

\let\duodecimalnum=\@duodecimal

\providecommand*{\duodecimal}[1]{%
\expandafter\protect\expandafter\@duodecimal{%
\expandafter\the\csname c@#1\endcsname}}

\makeatother

\renewcommand*{\thepage}{\duodecimal{page}}

\begin{document}

The duodecimal numbers:
\begin{center}
1, 2, \ldots, 8, 9, \sirdot,  \apple, 10, 11, \ldots, 19, 1\sirdot,
1\apple, 20, 21, \ldots, \apple 9, \apple\sirdot, \apple\apple, 100 \ldots
\end{center}

\setcounter{page}{10}
Set page counter to 10, so this should be page \sirdot.
\newpage
This should be page \apple.
\newpage
This should be page 10.

\end{document}

Voting your answer up even though I'm accepting Werner's (less generic, but much simpler and serves my purpose). — Ethan Bolker, Jun 09 '12 at 16:05
@EthanBolker This answer works. Unfortunately, Werner's doesn't. — egreg, Jun 09 '12 at 20:31

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

Here's a first stab at it and it relies on the fact that you only require two-digit page numbers. As such, this solution is only good up to 144 pages:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[paperheight=50pt,paperwidth=5em,footskip=-10em]{geometry}%
\usepackage[nomessages]{fp}% http://ctan.org/pkg/fp
\newcommand{\basetwelve}[1]{%
  \vphantom{0}\ifcase#1
    0\or1\or2\or3\or4\or5\or6\or7\or8\or9\or\smash{\raisebox{.2ex}{$\odot$}}\or\smash{$\Delta$}%
  \fi%
}
\newcounter{duo}%
\renewcommand{\thepage}{%
  \setcounter{duo}{\value{page}}%
  \FPeval\remainder{clip(\theduo-(12*round(\theduo/12-.5:0)))}%
  \FPeval\result{clip(round(\theduo/12-.5:0))}%
  \ifnum\result=0\else\basetwelve\result\fi\basetwelve\remainder%
}
\newcommand{\npage}{\mbox{}\newpage}
\pagestyle{plain}%
\begin{document}
\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage
\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage
\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage
\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage\npage
\end{document}

\basetwelve{<num>} works like a lookup function, returning 0,1,...,9,"10","11" based on the input values. \result contains the first digit of the page number, and \remainder the second. fp was used to perform the modulo calculations for base 12.

Height adjustments for the non-numeric symbols is done using a combination of \smash and \raisebox, as well as a \vphantom{0} for numbers smaller than 12.

geometry settings is just for this example.

@egreg: No, and I don't want to now that I've seen what it does. How would I fix this? Using an auxiliary macro? — Werner, Jun 09 '12 at 20:44

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 14 '13 at 17:04

There is alredy a LaTeX2e implematation for a dozenal converter, \dozens, provided by the dozenal package, which can do the job of @egregs \basetwelve:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{dozenal}
  \renewcommand{\x}{$\odot$}
  \renewcommand{\e}{$\Delta$}
\renewcommand{\thepage}{\dozens{\arabic{page}}}

\let\sirdot\x
\let\apple\e

\begin{document}
\setcounter{page}{10}
Set page counter to $10_{10}$, so this should be page \sirdot.
\newpage
This should be page \apple.
\newpage
This should be page 10.
\end{document}

dozenaldemo1 dozenaldemo2 dozenaldemo3

duodecimal page number

4 Answers4

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