The only limit on the length of an article in Joomla is the size of the database field used to contain the article text. That is very large! Long articles may contain many images and and take time to process, which may prove an inconvenience for the reader and the website. Pagination is a simple mechanism to break long articles into separate pages.

Prerequisites

A suitable Joomla site, version 5 or above where production information won't be impacted by the addition of test articles and menu items. For this tutorial we established a new Joomla 6 installation on a development computer. 

Administrator access to a Joomla site (version 5 or above). See 1.0 Admin Login.

Setup

Create an Article

• Login to the administrative area then navigate to articles (Content > Articles).
• Click on New. A new-article form appears.
  • Title: Animals
  • Article Text: The article should be lengthy and can be simple "Lorem Ipsum" if desired. For this tutorial we asked AI to create an article on animals with the following instructions:
    • "Write a simple article on the types of animals. There should be two introductory paragraphs and then a heading for each type of animal, mammals, reptiles, birds, fish with three paragraphs of general information under each heading, and finally a summary heading with a paragraph summarizing the article. Don't include any HR tags."
• Save and close

Create a Link to the Article

Create a link to the article from the main menu.

• Navigate to Content > Menus
• Click on the Main Menu
• Click on New to add a new menu item
  • Title: Types of Animals
  • Menu Type: Articles > Single Article
  • Select the Animals Article
  • Save and Close

Steps

View the website and click on the link to the article in the main menu.

The article appears normally.

Divide the Article into Pages

Return to the admin area and edit the article.

• Position the cursor below the first section and before the next section heading, adding a line break if necessary.
• Extend the CMS Content menu from the editor toolbar and select Page Break.
• A page-break form appears:
  • Page Title: A title that will appear in the page heading, e.g. Warm Blooded Mammals
  • Table of Contents Alias: A title that will appear in a pagination table of contents, e.g. Mammals
  • Click Insert Page Break
• The form closes and a horizontal line appears indicating where the page break has been inserted.
• Enter a page break before every section.
• Save the article. 

View the Article

View the article on the website, refreshing the page if necessary. The first page of the article appears with a page heading, a table of contents embedded in the article, and Previous and Next navigation controls below the article. 

Note the following features:

1. A page indicator appears at the top of the article.
2. A page location indicator.
3. The table of contents with links to each page, and . . .
4. a link to display All Pages.
5. Navigation controls. 

Modify the Page Breaks

Edit the article and delete a page break by clicking on the page break to highlight, and then delete. 

To move or modify a page break, delete it then add another in the desired location. 

Concepts

Page breaks provide a way to divide long or complex articles into smaller sections which can make them easier for some visitors to read.

In the tutorial we established page breaks before headings, but they may be inserted anywhere in the article.

They are easily added in the Joomla article editor and appear as horizontal lines in the editor.

The table of contents includes a link for All Pages so that visitors can view or print an article in its entirety. 

Page breaks are HTML HR tags with special attributes that appear only in the editor and may be viewed and manipulated in source code by advanced users