For paginating purpose PHP seems like a logical solution, but if you don’t have a huge amount of data you want to paginate, i would suggest paginating with jQuery. It’s not hard at all, and in this example we will make a jQuery pagination system.

Why paginate with jQuery?

it’s much much much faster

doesn’t make a database query for each page

easy to implement

and again…much FASTER then PHP

Why NOT paginate with jQuery?

Well the only the reason not to paginate using javascript is that there is a possibility that javascript is turned off in the browser of the user…but that’s a really small possibility.

Let’s start…

HTML

 <!-- the input fields that will hold the variables we will use -->
 <input type='hidden' id='current_page' />
 <input type='hidden' id='show_per_page' />

 <!-- Content div. The child elements will be used for paginating(they don't have to be all the same,
  you can use divs, paragraphs, spans, or whatever you like mixed together). '-->
 <div id='content'>
  <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p>
  <p>Vestibulum consectetur ipsum sit amet urna euismod imperdiet aliquam urna laoreet.</p>
  <p>Curabitur a ipsum ut elit porttitor egestas non vitae libero.</p>
  <p>Pellentesque ac sem ac sem tincidunt euismod.</p>
  <p>Duis hendrerit purus vitae nibh tincidunt bibendum.</p>
  <p>Nullam in nisi sit amet velit placerat laoreet.</p>
  <p>Vestibulum posuere ligula non dolor semper vel facilisis orci ultrices.</p>
  <p>Donec tincidunt lorem et dolor fringilla ut bibendum lacus fringilla.</p>
  <p>In non eros eu lacus vestibulum sodales.</p>
  <p>Duis ultrices metus sit amet sem adipiscing sit amet blandit orci convallis.</p>
  <p>Proin ullamcorper est vitae lorem mollis bibendum.</p>
  <p>Maecenas congue fringilla enim, tristique laoreet tortor adipiscing eget.</p>
  <p>Duis imperdiet metus et lorem venenatis nec porta libero porttitor.</p>
  <p>Maecenas lacinia lectus ac nulla commodo lacinia.</p>
  <p>Maecenas quis massa nisl, sed aliquet tortor.</p>
  <p>Quisque porttitor tellus ut ligula mattis luctus.</p>
  <p>In at mi dolor, at consectetur risus.</p>
  <p>Etiam id erat ut lorem fringilla dictum.</p>
  <p>Curabitur sagittis dolor ac nisi interdum sed posuere tellus commodo.</p>
  <p>Pellentesque quis magna vitae quam malesuada aliquet.</p>
  <p>Curabitur tempus tellus quis orci egestas condimentum.</p>
  <p>Maecenas laoreet eros ac orci adipiscing pharetra.</p>
  <p>Nunc non mauris eu nibh tincidunt iaculis.</p>
  <p>Ut semper leo lacinia purus hendrerit facilisis.</p>
  <p>Praesent et eros lacinia massa sollicitudin consequat.</p>
  <p>Proin non mauris in sem iaculis iaculis vel sed diam.</p>
  <p>Nunc quis quam pulvinar nibh volutpat aliquet eget in ante.</p>
  <p>In ultricies dui id libero pretium ullamcorper.</p>
  <p>Morbi laoreet metus vitae ipsum lobortis ultrices.</p>
  <p>Donec venenatis egestas arcu, quis eleifend erat tempus ullamcorper.</p>
  <p>Morbi nec leo non enim mollis adipiscing sed et dolor.</p>
  <p>Cras non tellus enim, vel mollis diam.</p>
  <p>Phasellus luctus quam id ligula commodo eu fringilla est cursus.</p>
  <p>Ut luctus augue tortor, in volutpat enim.</p>
  <p>Cras bibendum ante sed erat pharetra sodales.</p>
  <p>Donec sollicitudin enim eu mi suscipit luctus posuere eros imperdiet.</p>
  <p>Vestibulum mollis tortor quis ipsum suscipit in venenatis nulla fermentum.</p>
  <p>Proin vehicula suscipit felis, vitae facilisis nulla bibendum ac.</p>
  <p>Cras iaculis neque et orci suscipit id porta risus feugiat.</p>
  <p>Suspendisse eget tellus purus, ac pulvinar enim.</p>
  <p>Morbi hendrerit ultrices enim, ac rutrum felis commodo in.</p>
  <p>Suspendisse sagittis mattis sem, sit amet faucibus nisl fermentum vitae.</p>
  <p>Nulla sed purus et tellus convallis scelerisque.</p>
  <p>Nam at justo ut ante consectetur faucibus.</p>
  <p>Proin dapibus nisi a quam interdum lobortis.</p>
  <p>Nunc ornare nisi sed mi vehicula eu luctus mauris interdum.</p>
  <p>Mauris auctor suscipit tellus, at sodales nisi blandit sed.</p>

 </div>

 <!-- An empty div which will be populated using jQuery -->
 <div id='page_navigation'></div>

jQuery

$(document).ready(function(){

 //how much items per page to show
 var show_per_page = 5;
 //getting the amount of elements inside content div
 var number_of_items = $('#content').children().size();
 //calculate the number of pages we are going to have
 var number_of_pages = Math.ceil(number_of_items/show_per_page);

 //set the value of our hidden input fields
 $('#current_page').val(0);
 $('#show_per_page').val(show_per_page);

 //now when we got all we need for the navigation let's make it '

 /*
 what are we going to have in the navigation?
  - link to previous page
  - links to specific pages
  - link to next page
 */
 var navigation_html = '<a class="previous_link" href="[removed]previous();">Prev</a>';
 var current_link = 0;
 while(number_of_pages > current_link){
  navigation_html += '<a class="page_link" href="[removed]go_to_page(' + current_link +')" longdesc="' + current_link +'">'+ (current_link + 1) +'</a>';
  current_link++;
 }
 navigation_html += '<a class="next_link" href="[removed]next();">Next</a>';

 $('#page_navigation').html(navigation_html);

 //add active_page class to the first page link
 $('#page_navigation .page_link:first').addClass('active_page');

 //hide all the elements inside content div
 $('#content').children().css('display', 'none');

 //and show the first n (show_per_page) elements
 $('#content').children().slice(0, show_per_page).css('display', 'block');

});

function previous(){

 new_page = parseInt($('#current_page').val()) - 1;
 //if there is an item before the current active link run the function
 if($('.active_page').prev('.page_link').length==true){
  go_to_page(new_page);
 }

}

function next(){
 new_page = parseInt($('#current_page').val()) + 1;
 //if there is an item after the current active link run the function
 if($('.active_page').next('.page_link').length==true){
  go_to_page(new_page);
 }

}
function go_to_page(page_num){
 //get the number of items shown per page
 var show_per_page = parseInt($('#show_per_page').val());

 //get the element number where to start the slice from
 start_from = page_num * show_per_page;

 //get the element number where to end the slice
 end_on = start_from + show_per_page;

 //hide all children elements of content div, get specific items and show them
 $('#content').children().css('display', 'none').slice(start_from, end_on).css('display', 'block');

 /*get the page link that has longdesc attribute of the current page and add active_page class to it
 and remove that class from previously active page link*/
 $('.page_link[longdesc=' + page_num +']').addClass('active_page').siblings('.active_page').removeClass('active_page');

 //update the current page input field
 $('#current_page').val(page_num);
}

That’s it. I hope you like this .