Version 1.1, 9 August 2021

Version history:

Version 1.0, 8 April 2015

Version 1.1, 9 August 2021

Introduction and aim

Discovery services and e-book vendors such as Google Books add page numbers to the e-book when uploading content, including roman pagination. In a standard book, page 1 of the print version will be page 1 of the PDF online. This will not work when a volume contains different numeral systems in the pagination, such as Hindi numerals or page numbers with asterisks. In these cases, the automatic page numbering of the platform doesn’t match the printed book.

To avoid this, print files should be paginated entirely in Arabic (‘Western’) page numbers (bar the English prelims, which will have roman page numbers).

Right-to-left pagination

Critical editions in for example Arabic or Hebrew often contain sections that read from right-to-left. To ensure an uninterrupted reading order, these sections should have ‘Western’ pagination in the running headlines, which will, in the printed book, be descending. The numbering skips from the end of the English part to the first Eastern page. It can be desirable to add Hindi, Hebrew or other page numbers to the bottom of the page that are ascending following the text direction.

The typesetters will be instructed to reverse the pages of the Eastern part(s) for the e-book version, which will then read from top-to-bottom.

Use this text to explain this to your authors:

''Our online platform will only recognize an alpha-numeric numeral system, so we would like to suggest that we apply Western page numbers throughout the book in the running headlines, whilst maintaining [alternative] pagination in the bottom margins of the Eastern part. ''

Brief overview of numeral systems

• Arabic or 'Western': 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• Roman: I, II, III, IV, V or i, ii, iii, iv, v (only used for front matter)
• Hindi: ١, ٢, ٣, ٤, ٥
• East Indic: ۱, ۲, ۳, ۴, ۵
• Abjad: ا, ب, ج, د, ه (used for Arabic front matter)
• Hebrew: א, ב, ג, ד, ה

Please avoid using asterisks in any pagination as this pollutes the XML.