Italic roman page numbering in frontmatter

Question

I'm using the memoir documentclass, and I would like to have roman page numbering, in the front matter, in italic. Does anyone know how to do it or can reference me something to read?

P.S. I am looking just for italicising the roman page numbering of the preface and not for patching multiple things (I'd like to add only what I understand, and since I am a newby, I understand just a little)

Answer 1

A simple way to make this happen is to redefine \thepage with \textit{...} command inside \frontmatter and reset to upright after \mainmatter command. See below example:

\documentclass{memoir}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\frontmatter
%% Making italic page number in frontmatter
\def\thepage{\textit{\roman{page}}}

\chapter{Preface}
\lipsum

\mainmatter
%% Making upright page number in mainmatter
\def\thepage{\arabic{page}}

\chapter{One}
\lipsum
\end{document}

Answer 2

One way is to use the new macro \ThePage in the page style definitions. In the \frontmatter part, it expands to \textit{\thepage}, after \mainmatter it expands to \thepage.

Example file:

\documentclass{memoir}

\newcommand*{\FrontMatterThePageFont}[1]{\textit{#1}}
\newcommand*{\MainMatterThePageFont}[1]{#1}
\newcommand*{\ThePage}{%
  \MainMatterThePageFont{\thepage}%
}

\makeatletter

% \frontmatter
\addtodef*{\@memfront}{}{%
  \pagenumbering{Roman}%
  \renewcommand*{\ThePage}{%
    \FrontMatterThePageFont{\thepage}%
  }%
}

% \mainmatter
\addtodef*{\@memmain}{}{%
  \renewcommand*{\ThePage}{%
    \MainMatterThePageFont{\thepage}%
  }%
}
\makeatother

\makeevenfoot{plain}{}{\ThePage}{}
\makeoddfoot{plain}{}{\ThePage}{}
\makeevenhead{simple}{\ThePage}{}{}
\makeoddhead{simple}{}{}{\ThePage}
\makeevenhead{headings}{\ThePage}{}{\slshape\leftmark}
\makeoddhead{headings}{\slshape\rightmark}{}{\ThePage}
\makeevenhead{myheadings}{\ThePage}{}{\slshape\leftmark}
\makeoddhead{myheadings}{\slshape\rightmark}{}{\ThePage}
\makeevenfoot{ruled}{\ThePage}{}{}
\makeoddfoot{ruled}{}{}{\ThePage}
\makeevenfoot{Ruled}{\ThePage}{}{}
\makeoddfoot{Ruled}{}{}{\ThePage}
% ...

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\frontmatter
\chapter{Introduction}
\newpage
\lipsum[1]
\mainmatter
\chapter{Experiments}
\newpage
\lipsum[2]
\end{document}

Remarks:

• I have patched \@memfront and \@memmain instead of \frontmatter and \mainmatter. because of the star forms that class memoir provides (the star forms do not change the page numbering).

• I have added a list that changes \thepage to \ThePage for some predefined page styles. In your own page style definitions, just use \ThePage instead of \thepage.