Adding line numbers to documents

17 Comments

There is a really nice package, lineno, which provides line-numbering and various options for customization, some of which I will discuss further below. The most common use is continuous line numbering throughout the document. The following two lines in the preamble will do the trick:

\usepackage{lineno}
\linenumbers
lineno_general

General lineno package example

 

Options

Some of the options the package provides include:

  • [left]: Line numbers in left margin (default)
  • [right]: Line numbers in right margin
  • [switch]: Line number in outer margin (left for even, right for odd pages)
  • [switch*]: Line numbers in inner margin
  • [pagewise]: Restart numbering on every page
  • [running]: Continuously number lines (default)
  • [modulo]: Print only multiples of five
  • [displaymath, mathlines]: Line numbers for math environments (both needed)

Example:

\usepackage[switch, modulo]{lineno}
\linenumbers

 

Line-numbers for a paragraph

The package provides a linenumbers environment to number a single paragraph.

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{lineno, blindtext}
\begin{document}
	\blindtext

	\begin{linenumbers}
		\blindtext
	\end{linenumbers}

	\blindtext
\end{document}
lineno_par

Paragraph line number example

If you do not leave an empty line between the previous and the actual paragraph, the previous may also get numbered.

 

Line numbers for math environments

We saw how math environments can be automatically wrapped for lines to be numbered. To number only a single set of equations, rather than the whole document, use the following code (from the lineno documentation):

\begin{linenomath*}
	\begin{eqnarray}
		b_1 &=& a_{11}x_1 + a_{12}x_2 \\
		b_2 &=& a_{21}x_1 + a_{22}x_2
	\end{eqnarray}
\end{linenomath*}

 

Numbering every other line

Instead of using the modulo option, it is possible to number every nth line (e.g. every second):

\usepackage{lineno}
\linenumbers
\modulolinenumbers[2]

 

Customizing numbers

The font of the numbers is readily changed by redefining linenumberfont. The default font style/size used is:

\renewcommand\linenumberfont{\normalfont\tiny\sffamily}

Since linenumber is just a counter, it is possible to change it to roman (roman/Roman) numbers or alphabetic characters (alph/Alph, max 26!):

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{lineno, blindtext, color}
\linenumbers
\modulolinenumbers[2]
\renewcommand\thelinenumber{\color{red}\Roman{linenumber}}
\begin{document}
	\blindtext
\end{document}
lineno_roman_red

Customized line number example

 

Referencing line numbers

The package also implements labels/references to specific line numbers using linelabel/lineref. And by loading the hyperref package (always load last), clicking the references brings the user directly to the corresponding line.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lineno, hyperref}
\linenumbers
\begin{document}
	Some text.\linelabel{lne:label1}
	\clearpage
	See line \lineref{lne:label1}.
\end{document}

 

Documentation

Package documentation (user manual) for lineno.

17 Comments

  1. Sounds like a nice package. I’d love to use it. Unfortunately, my paragraphs containing align environments don’t get counted or numbered, that is neither the equations nor the text surrounding it.

    Any idea how to fix this?

    Best wishes,
    Almut

    Reply

    • Hi Almut!

      Fixing the text surrounding is easy, just add an empty line before the align environment or some of the solutions provided here.

      Adding line numbers to the equations is more tricky. I tried a fix posted by Ted some time ago. When I encapsulate align with linenomath:

      \begin{linenomath*}
	\begin{eqnarray}
		...

	\end{eqnarray}
\end{linenomath*}

      I get a funny double number on the last equation. He also mentioned double numbers, but only in his first fix.

      Does anyone know how to fix this?

      Thanks, Tom.

      Reply

      • Thanks for the reply Tom!

        However, the line numbers aren’t necessary and would be just for my convenience while writing my thesis, so any changes in the text are overkill in my case. I’ll survive without them. 🙂

        Best wishes,
        Almut

      • tedpavlic

        The double-line numbers are an artificate of TeX not setting text on a grid. Occassionally (but not always), you’re going to get an extra number between an equation and the surrounding text, especially if your equation is “tall.” Given the substrate on which TeX documents are constructed, preventing these problems is a significant challenge.

  3. Robert Paynter

    Are there any other methods? I think what I’m after is a page decoration rather than text markup as {lineno} package does – it puts numbers for each line of text. I would like numbering down the edge of the page so that someone can refer to a place on the page irrespective of whether it is a line of text, an equation or a figure (with labels).

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Robert,

      Below is some code which I adapted slightly from its source. It prints line numbers irrespective of the content. Obviously, these line numbers might not perfectly coincide with the actual content. A shift happens whenever the height of an object (such as a figure) is not a multiple of the ‘line height’.

      I hope this is what you were looking for.

      Best, Tom

      \documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr,blindtext,amsmath}

\makeatletter
 \newsavebox{\@linebox}
 \savebox{\@linebox}[3em][t]{\parbox[t]{3em}{%
   \@tempcnta\@ne\relax
   \loop{\scriptsize\the\@tempcnta}\\
     \advance\@tempcnta by \@ne\ifnum\@tempcnta<48\repeat}}
 \pagestyle{fancy}
 \fancyhead{}
 \fancyfoot{}
 \fancyhead[LE]{\footnotesize\thepage\begin{picture}(0,0)%
      \put(-26,-25){\usebox{\@linebox}}%
      \end{picture}}
 \fancyhead[LO]{%
    \begin{picture}(0,0)%
      \put(-18,-25){\usebox{\@linebox}}%
     \end{picture}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\section*{Lorem Ipsum}
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{center}
\rule{2cm}{2cm}
\caption{default}
\label{default}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
\Blindtext
\begin{align}y=a\cdot{}x+b\end{align}
\end{document}
      Reply

    • tom

      Hi there,

      That’s an interesting question. Use the following code to show line numbers on both sides of the text. I took the solution from here.

      HTH, Tom

      \documentclass{article}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\usepackage{lineno}
\makeatletter
\def\makeLineNumberLeft{%
  \linenumberfont\llap{\hb@xt@\linenumberwidth{\LineNumber\hss}\hskip\linenumbersep}% left line number
  \hskip\columnwidth% skip over column of text
  \rlap{\hskip\linenumbersep\hb@xt@\linenumberwidth{\hss\LineNumber}}\hss}% right line number
\leftlinenumbers% Re-issue [left] option
\makeatother
\linenumbers
\begin{document}
\blindtext
\end{document}
      Reply

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