How to move page number?

Question

I want to change the position of the page number.

I've read around here that some people suggest using the fancyhdr package, but I don't want to use it – I'm a beginner to LaTeX so I don't want to use a package that could change the margins and other specifications to the layout that I've already made. Does anyone know how to move the page number?

Please correct me if my concerns about fancyhdr are unfounded.

Answer 1

As a beginner you should be using packages, and making use of them as much as possible. Generally speaking, packages don't mess up things that they are not designed to change, so you shouldn't be worrying much about using them, especially if they are the kinds of packages that are recommended often by users here. Unless you are using a special documentclass such as memoir or one of the KOMA classes, you should be using fancyhdr, because it provides a very simple interface to do exactly what you want.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{lipsum} % only for showing some sample text
\fancyhf{} % clear all header and footers
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} % remove the header rule
\rfoot{\thepage}
%
%lfoot{\thepage} % puts it on the left side instead
%
% or if your document is 2 sided, and you want even and odd placement of the number
%\fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\thepage} % Left side on Even pages; Right side on Odd pages
%
\pagestyle{fancy}
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

The best reason to use a package is that package writers are generally much more experienced in doing things than the average end user, and so a package will deal with problems that might not even occur to you (even when you become more experienced with LaTeX); also, there's really no sense in re-inventing the wheel, when good tools with long track records of use are available.

See also this page on the Wiki for some recommendations of useful packages. Since you also mentioned changing margins, you should also probably be using the geometry package instead of doing that by hand, too.

Answer 2

\documentclass[twoside]{article}

\makeatletter
\def\ps@myPS{%
    \def\@oddfoot{\null\hfill\thepage}
    \def\@evenfoot{\thepage}%
    \def\@evenhead{\null\hfil\slshape\leftmark}%
    \def\@oddhead{{\slshape\rightmark}}}%
\makeatother

\pagestyle{myPS}

\begin{document}

foo
\clearpage
blah
\end{document}

Answer 3

I absolutely agree with Alan Munn with one limitation: His answer might give the impression that the fancyhdr package is without alternative. However, there are some other packages to configure the page header and page footer.

Here I've adapted his example for using package scrlayer-scrpage instead of fancyhdr:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scrlayer-scrpage}
\usepackage{lipsum} % only for showing some sample text
\clearpairofpagestyles% remove all default elements from page styles scrheadings
                      % and plain.scrheadings
\ofoot*{\pagemark}% add pagination to the outer part of the page footer
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Using scrlayer-scrpage would also be recommended using a KOMA-Script class like scrartcl instead of a standard class:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{scrlayer-scrpage}
\usepackage{lipsum} % only for showing some sample text
\cfoot*{}% remove the default center pagination from the footer
\ofoot*{\pagemark}% add pagination to the outer part of the page footer
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

I've used here another solution to remove the default pagination in the middle of the footer. You can find more examples for using scrlayer-scrpage in the manual and in the KOMA-Script wiki (also available in German).

For such a simple page style with pagination only, you could also use package scrlayer:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scrlayer}
\usepackage{lipsum} % only for showing some sample text
\DeclareNewLayer[% declare a new layer
  foreground,% printed in the foreground
  foot,% placed to the page footer
  contents={\hfill\thepage}% with right aligned page number as content
]{pagenumber}
\RedeclarePageStyleByLayers{plain}{pagenumber}% redefine page style plain to use the newly defined layer
\pagestyle{plain}% (re)activate the (re)defined page style
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

As you can see, package scrlayer is more low-level than scrlayer-scrpage. Package scrlayer-scrpage adds an extra user level to package scrlayer.

Here I've adapted his example for using package titleps instead of fancyhdr:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titleps}
\usepackage{lipsum} % only for showing some sample text
\newpagestyle{pagenumberfooterright}{% defining a new page style
  \setfoot{}{}{\thepage}% with page number at the right side
}
\pagestyle{pagenumberfooterright}
\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

See the manuals of the packages for more information.