Pagination #

Pagination allows you to iterate over a data set and create multiple files from a single template. The input data can be in the form of an array or object defined in your frontmatter or in global data, or you can paginate a collection to make an easily digestible list of your posts.

Paging an Array #

To iterate over a data set and create pages for individual chunks of data, use pagination. Enable in your template’s front matter by adding the pagination key.

Consider the following template, which will result in two pages being created, each of which will display two items from testdata:

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 2
testdata:
 - item1
 - item2
 - item3
 - item4
---
<ol>
{%- for item in pagination.items %}
  <li>{{ item }}</li>
{% endfor -%}
</ol>

exports.data = {
  pagination: {
    data: "testdata",
    size: 2
  },
  testdata: [
    "item1",
    "item2",
    "item3",
    "item4"
  ]
};

exports.render = function(data) {
  return `<ol>
    ${data.pagination.items.map(function(item) {
        return `<li>${item}</li>`;
      }).join("")
    }
  </ol>`;
};

We enable pagination and then give it a dataset with the data key. We control the number of items in each chunk with size. The pagination data variable will be populated with what you need to create each template. Here’s what’s in pagination:

{
  items: [], // Array of current page’s chunk of data
  pageNumber: 0, // current page number, 0 indexed

  // Cool URLs
  hrefs: [], // Array of all page hrefs (in order)
  href: {
    next: "…", // put inside <a href="">Next Page</a>
    previous: "…", // put inside <a href="">Previous Page</a>
    first: "…",
    last: "…",
  },

  pages: [], // Array of all chunks of paginated data (in order)
  page: {
    next: {}, // Next page’s chunk of data
    previous: {}, // Previous page’s chunk of data
    first: {},
    last: {}},
  }
}

{
  data: …, // the original string key to the dataset
  size: 1, // page chunk sizes

  // Cool URLs
  // Use pagination.href.next, pagination.href.previous, et al instead.
  nextPageHref: "…", // put inside <a href="">Next Page</a>
  previousPageHref: "…", // put inside <a href="">Previous Page</a>
  firstPageHref: "…",
  lastPageHref: "…",

  // Uncool URLs
  // These include index.html file names, use `hrefs` instead
  links: [], // Array of all page links (in order)

  // Deprecated things:
  // nextPageLink
  // previousPageLink
  // firstPageLink
  // lastPageLink
  // pageLinks (alias to `links`)
}

If the above file were named paged.njk, it would create two pages: _site/paged/index.html and _site/paged/1/index.html. These output paths are configurable with permalink (see below).

Creating Navigation Links to your Pages #

Learn how to create a list of links to every paginated page on a pagination template with a full Pagination Navigation tutorial.

Paging an Object #

All of the examples thus far have paged Array data. Eleventy does allow paging objects too. Objects are resolved to pagination arrays using either the Object.keys or Object.values JavaScript functions. Consider the following Nunjucks template:

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 1
testdata:
  itemkey1: itemvalue1
  itemkey2: itemvalue2
  itemkey3: itemvalue3
---
<ol>
{%- for item in pagination.items %}
  <li>{{ item }}={{testdata[item] }}</li>
{% endfor -%}
</ol>

In this example, we would get 3 pages that each print a key/value pair from testdata. The paged items hold the object keys:

[
  [ "itemkey1" ], // pagination.items[0] holds the object key
  [ "itemkey2" ],
  [ "itemkey3" ]
]

You can use these keys to get access to the original value: testdata[ pagination.items[0] ].

If you’d like the pagination to iterate over the values instead of the keys (using Object.values instead of Object.keys), add resolve: values to your pagination front matter:

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 1
  resolve: values
testdata:
  itemkey1: itemvalue1
  itemkey2: itemvalue2
  itemkey3: itemvalue3
---

This resolves to:

[
  [ "itemvalue1" ], // pagination.items[0] holds the object value
  [ "itemvalue2" ],
  [ "itemvalue3" ]
]

Paginate a global or local data file #

Read more about Template Data Files. The only change here is that you point your data pagination key to the global or local data instead of data in the front matter. For example, consider the following globalDataSet.json file in your global data directory.

{
  "myData": [
    "item1",
    "item2",
    "item3",
    "item4"
  ]
}

Your front matter would look like this:

---
pagination:
  data: globalDataSet.myData
  size: 1
---
<ol>
{%- for item in pagination.items %}
  <li>{{ item }}</li>
{% endfor -%}
</ol>

Remapping with permalinks #

Normally, front matter does not support template syntax, but permalink does, enabling parametric URLs via pagination variables. Here’s an example of a permalink using the pagination page number:

---
permalink: "different/page-{{ pagination.pageNumber }}/index.html"
---

Writes to _site/different/page-0/index.html, _site/different/page-1/index.html, et cetera.

That means Nunjucks will also let you start your page numbers with 1 instead of 0, by just adding 1 here:

---
permalink: "different/page-{{ pagination.pageNumber + 1 }}/index.html"
---

Writes to _site/different/page-1/index.html, _site/different/page-2/index.html, et cetera.

You can even use template logic here too:

---
permalink: "different/{% if pagination.pageNumber > 0 %}page-{{ pagination.pageNumber + 1 }}/{% endif %}index.html"
---

Writes to _site/different/index.html, _site/different/page-2/index.html, et cetera.

Use page item data in the permalink #

You can do more advanced things like this:

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 1
testdata:
  - My Item
permalink: "different/{{ pagination.items[0] | slug }}/index.html"
---

Using a universal slug filter (transforms My Item to my-item), this outputs: _site/different/my-item/index.html.

Aliasing to a different variable #

Ok, so pagination.items[0] is ugly. We provide an option to alias this to something different.

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 1
  alias: wonder
testdata:
  - Item1
  - Item2
permalink: "different/{{ wonder | slug }}/index.html"
---
You can use the alias in your content too {{ wonder }}.

This writes to _site/different/item1/index.html and _site/different/item2/index.html.

If your chunk size is greater than 1, the alias will be an array instead of a single value.

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 2
  alias: wonder
testdata:
  - Item1
  - Item2
  - Item3
  - Item4
permalink: "different/{{ wonder[0] | slug }}/index.html"
---
You can use the alias in your content too {{ wonder[0] }}.

This writes to _site/different/item1/index.html and _site/different/item3/index.html.

Paging a Collection #

If you’d like to make a paginated list of all of your blog posts (any content with the tag post on it), use something like the following template to iterate over a specific collection:

---
title: My Posts
pagination:
  data: collections.post
  size: 6
  alias: posts
---

<ol>
{% for post in posts %}
  <li><a href="{{ post.url | url }}">{{ post.data.title }}</a></li>
{% endfor %}
</ol>

The above generates a list of links but you could do a lot more. See what’s available in the Collection documentation (specifically templateContent). If you’d like to use this to automatically generate Tag pages for your content, please read Quick Tip #004—Create Tag Pages for your Blog.

Modifying the Data Set prior to Pagination #

Reverse the Data #

Use reverse: true.

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 2
  reverse: true
testdata:
 - item1
 - item2
 - item3
 - item4
---

Paginates to:

[
  ["item4", "item3"],
  ["item2", "item1"],
]

(More discussion at Issue #194)

As an aside, this could also be achieved in a more verbose way using the Collection API. This could also be done using the new before callback .

Filtering Values #

Use the filter pagination property to remove values from paginated data.

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 1
  filter:
    - item3
testdata:
  item1: itemvalue1
  item2: itemvalue2
  item3: itemvalue3
---

Paginates to:

[
  [ "item1" ],
  [ "item2" ],
]

This will work the same with paginated arrays or with resolve: values for paginated objects.

---
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 1
  resolve: values
  filter:
    - itemvalue3
testdata:
  item1: itemvalue1
  item2: itemvalue2
  item3: itemvalue3
---

Paginates to:

[
  [ "itemvalue1" ],
  [ "itemvalue2" ],
]

The before Callback #

The most powerful tool to change the data. Use this callback to modify, filter, or otherwise change the pagination data however you see fit before pagination occurs.

---js
{
  pagination: {
    data: "testdata",
    size: 2,
    before: function(paginationData, fullData) {
      // `fullData` is new in v1.0.1 and contains the full Data Cascade thus far

      return paginationData.map(entry => `${entry} with a suffix`);
    }
  },
  testdata: [
    "item1",
    "item2",
    "item3",
    "item4"
  ]
}
---
<!-- the rest of the template -->

The above will iterate over a data set containing: ["item1 with a suffix", "item2 with a suffix", "item3 with a suffix", "item4 with a suffix"].

You can do anything in this before callback. Maybe a custom .sort(), .filter(), .map() to remap the entries, .slice() to paginate only a subset of the data, etc!

Order of Operations #

If you use more than one of these data set modification features, here’s the order in which they operate:

• The before callback
• reverse: true
• filter entries

Add All Pagination Pages to Collections #

By default, any tags listed in a paginated template will only add the very first page to the appropriate collection.

Consider the following pagination template:

tags:
  - myCollection
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 2
testdata:
  - item1
  - item2
  - item3
  - item4

This means that collections.myCollection will have only the first page added to the collection array (_site/my-page/index.html). However, if you’d like to add all the pagination pages to the collections, use addAllPagesToCollections: true to the pagination front matter options like so:

tags:
  - myCollection
pagination:
  data: testdata
  size: 2
  addAllPagesToCollections: true
testdata:
  - item1
  - item2
  - item3
  - item4

Now collections.myCollection will have both output pages in the collection array (_site/my-page/index.html and _site/my-page/1/index.html).

Full Pagination Option List #

• data (String) Lodash.get path to point to the target data set.
• size (Number, required)
• alias (String) Lodash.set path to point to the property to set.
• resolve: values
• filter (Array)
• reverse: true (Boolean)
• addAllPagesToCollections: true (Boolean)

Other pages in Working with Templates:

• Layouts
  • Layout Chaining
• Collections
• Pagination
  • Pagination Navigation
• Create Pages From Data
• Content Dates
• Permalinks
• Common Pitfalls

Related Docs

• Quick Tip #004—Zero Maintenance Tag Pages for your Blog
• Quick Tip #010—Transform Global Data using an `eleventyComputed.js` Global Data File
• Create a list of Navigation Links for your Pagination.