Roman Numerals for Page Numbers

Excel includes a worksheet function (ROMAN) that allows you to convert Arabic numbers into Roman numerals. You may wonder if there is any such function that allows you to print Roman numerals as page numbers on a printout.

There is no built-in feature that allows you to do that, but you can create a macro that will do the trick. Consider the following macro:

Sub RomanPageNums()
    Dim iPages As Integer
    Dim J As Integer

    ' Get count of pages in active sheet
    iPages = ExecuteExcel4Macro("Get.Document(50)")

    ' Print worksheet, page by page
    With ActiveSheet
        For J = 1 To iPages
            ' Set page letter
            .PageSetup.CenterFooter = _
              Application.WorksheetFunction.Roman(J)
            ' Print page J
            .PrintOut From:=J, To:=J
        Next J
    End With
End Sub

This macro first figures out how many pages are in your printout and assigns the value to the iPages variable. It then steps through each page, changing the page number in the center portion of the footer prior to printing each page. The page number is set by converting the current page number (J) to a Roman numeral using the ROMAN worksheet function.

If you want the Roman numerals to appear in other parts of the footer, you can replace the .CenterFooter property with either .LeftFooter or .RightFooter. You can also use .LeftHeader, .CenterHeader, or .RightHeader, if desired.

The code in the RomanPageNums macro works in all the recent versions of Excel. If you are using Excel 2000 or greater, you could also replace the actual line that sets the footer with the following code:

            .PageSetup.CenterFooter = Application.Roman(J)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2518) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Roman Numerals for Page Numbers.