If you blog using WordPress, you’ll notice that the default Pagination (the page navigation on your blog or posts) style is not that pretty.
It’s quite plain and sometimes it’s even unnoticable. I’ve found out as well that 50% of my readers who read an article on my first page does not read the second page. I blame it for my uninteresting words, my bad English writing skill, and also the pagination style that comes with it. There are chances that people in your site doesn’t even know that there is a second page (or more) on your article. This Wordpress plugin will help you “style” your page navigation which looks better and works better for your readers.
The plugin is called “Digg Style Pagination” Plugin and can be found here. The instruction provided on that page doesn’t let you know on how to paginate your single posts. To paginate your single post with this plugin:
- Make sure you have installed the plugin and have inserted the CSS style of your choice into the theme CSS style file.
- Make sure that the plugin works (if you are following the instructions correctly, you should see the pagination appearing on your main blog page)
- To use the pagination style on your single posts, open up your Single.php file on the Theme Editor, and find the pagination line (the line that prints out the page navigation) which looks like this: ..php wp_link_pages(‘…
- Modify the line so that it becomes:
<div class="pagination">
<?php wp_link_pages('..................................
</div>
That’s it! You should now see the pagination style on both your blog’s main page AND also on the single post (if you have multiple pages on your posts!)
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Is there a way to use it on posts but turn it off on the homepage?
Why do you want to disable it on the homepage? How will the user navigate through your old posts?
We are launching a makeover in a few hours where the frontpage is magazine-style, and old posts are accessed through the “categories” pages. I’m not looking for navigation between posts, but a way to make post pagination more noticeable and attractive.
Ah ok..you need to modify the Main Index Template file (index.php) and remove the code that displays the navigational.
If you haven’t installed the plugin mentioned on my post above, you just have to find the line wp_link_pages… and remove it. Or if you have already installed the plugin above, don’t add the “wp_pagination_plugin” code line mentioned in the plugin Installation guide
That should do the trick..
Hi, I visited your blog just now. Very nice. Thanks!
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You showed us how to only style the page numbers the same way as the front page but is there a way to paginate a single post with the next and previous buttons as well?
when using in wordpress to separate a single post. Thanks for the help
Hi Ray,
If you look at Wordpress’ manual: http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/next_post
That will let you know about what code to put to paginate the post with next/previous links
Thanks for pointing me to the right plugin for pagination. Yeah, the default pagination could be easily overlooked.
Just one question, I have installed & activated the plugin, how do I “inserted the CSS style of your choice into the theme CSS style file.”?
Make it two question, can I use it for a page instead of the post?
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Hi Yan, sorry for a late reply, was having an Easter break, away from computer and technology
If you go to the URL that I mention on the post, there’s a link to:
http://www.mis-algoritmos.com/2007/03/16/some-styles-for-your-pagination/
which displays some CSS styles that you can download/copy-paste to your theme css file.
Answer for question #2: I haven’t tried it yet but if you can find the code to insert the post navigation code on a page, then in theory, it should work, but I honestly haven’t tried it yet!
Thanks, Michael. It just doesn’t work for me so I wrap the default pagination in a and give some CSS style to it. Just still can figure out how to output the “next” and browse to the next page…:(
Yan’s last blog post..Buddha and the Cow Dung
Is there a way to customize this or have it Paginate by Category or Subcategory.
I have created the site to create multiple posts on seperate pages, and by category. However, I need to be able to paginate each Page of posts, so that 1 page might have a category of posts but you are able to go to the “previous” posts within that category. Can I get your assistance on this.
Is this what you are looking for?
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/next_post_link
(I did some Google search to help out)