Preamble

The page controls which are used by default in DataTables (forward and backward buttons only) are great for most situations, but there are cases where you may wish to customise the controls presented to the end user. This is made simple by DataTables through its extensible pagination mechanism. There are two types of pagination controls built into DataTables: two_button (default) and full_numbers. To switch between these two types, use the sPaginationType initialisation parameter. You can add additional types of pagination control by extending the $.fn.dataTableExt.oPagination object.

Note also that the number of pages which are shown with direct links (the 1, 2, 3...) can be changed by setting the variable jQuery.fn.dataTableExt.oPagination.iFullNumbersShowPages (default 5). Odd numbers are best to keep the display even.

The example below shows the full_numbers type of pagination, where 'first', 'previous', 'next' and 'last' buttons are presented, as well as the five pages around the current page.

Live example

Initialisation code

$(document).ready(function() {
	$('#example').dataTable( {
		"sPaginationType": "full_numbers"
	} );
} );

Other examples

Basic initialisation

• Zero configuration
• Feature enablement
• Sorting data
• Multi-column sorting
• Multiple tables
• Hidden columns
• DOM positioning
• State saving
• Alternative pagination styles
• Change language information (internationalisation)
• ThemeRoller themes (Smoothness)

Advanced initialisation

• Events (pre initialisation)
• Events (post initialisation)
• Column rendering
• Sorting without HTML tags
• Multiple table controls (sDom)
• Custom toolbar (element) around table
• Set sorting controls
• Column grouping through col/row spans
• Row grouping
• Row callback
• Footer callback
• Change language information from a file (internationalisation)

Data sources

• DOM
• Javascript array
• Ajax source
• Server side processing

Server-side processing

• Obtain server-side data
• Add extra HTTP variables
• Use HTTP POST
• Custom column ordering (in callback data)
• Pipelining data (reduce Ajax calls for paging)
• Show and hide details about a particular record
• User selectable rows (multiple rows)

API

• Dynamically add a new row
• Individual column filtering
• Highlight rows and columns
• Show and hide details about a particular record
• User selectable rows (multiple rows)
• User selectable rows (single row) and delete rows
• Editable rows (with jEditable)
• Submit form with elements in table
• Index column (static number column)
• Show and hide columns dynamically
• Regular expression filtering

Plug-ins

• Add custom API functions
• Sorting and type detection
• Custom pagination controls
• Range filtering / custom filtering
• Live DOM sorting

Please refer to the DataTables documentation for full information about its API properties and methods.