Thesis & Long Documents
Front Matter (Roman) and Main Matter (Arabic) Page Numbers in LaTeX
Academic theses typically use Roman numerals (i, ii, iii) for front matter (acknowledgments, table of contents) and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) for the main content, resetting to page 1. LaTeX makes this easy with \frontmatter/\mainmatter or \pagenumbering.
For book/report Class (Recommended)
The book and report classes provide \frontmatter and \mainmatter commands:
\documentclass{book}
\begin{document}
\frontmatter % Roman numerals, no chapter numbering
\include{titlepage}
\tableofcontents
\listoffigures
\mainmatter % Arabic numerals restart at 1, chapters numbered
\include{chapters/introduction}
\include{chapters/methods}
\include{chapters/results}
\backmatter % No chapter numbering (for bibliography, index)
\bibliography{references}
\end{document}For article Class (Manual Approach)
The article class doesn't have \frontmatter. Use \pagenumbering directly:
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{roman} % Start with Roman numerals
\tableofcontents
\newpage
\pagenumbering{arabic} % Switch to Arabic, resets to 1
\section{Introduction}
Your content starts here on page 1.
\end{document}💡 Tips
- •\frontmatter automatically sets Roman numerals and suppresses chapter numbering
- •\mainmatter resets the page counter to 1 and switches to Arabic
- •If your university template already includes these commands, don't add them again
- •Use \setcounter{page}{1} if you need to manually reset the page number at any point
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