Pagebar2
Pagebar adds a nice page bar to your blog posts, multipaged posts and paged comments.
Consider an alternative
Pagebar2 shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 900+ sites, is rated 3.7/5 and was last updated 4 years ago, and scores 30/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (900+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 4 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 6.0 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
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Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Pagebar2 stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| comments | >100 |
| Navi | #7 |
| navigation | >100 |
| page | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 3.7 from 3 reviews
About Pagebar2
From the official readme · v2.70Description
Pagebar adds a nice page bar to your blog posts, multipaged posts and paged comments:
Features
- Optional automatic insertion if page on all post pages (blog, search, tags, …)
- Full control of pagebar by manual insertion into the templates.
- Better pagination for multipaged posts and pages
- “Display all” link for multipaged posts.
- Extremely customizable.
The option pages
The option page is devided into three tabs (postbar, multipagebar, commentbar) for the three different pagebar types. You need to have Javascript enabled in your browser for the option page to work! They all share some basic settings and got some specific settings, explained in the next chapters.
— Shared basic settings —
-
Left
Number of links displayed on the left of the bar. If this number is 0 no left links are displayed at all. -
Center
The number of links displayed in the middle of the bar. This should be an odd number. If an even number is entered, pagebar will display one more link than entered. If this number is 0 no left links are displayed at all.
+Right
Number of links displayed on the right of the bar. if this number is 0 no right links are displayed at all.
-
Leading text
Text to be displayed in front of the bar. A space is automatically added after the text. You can use the tokens in this field. -
Standard page
Text to be displayed on all pages but the current. You can use the tokens. -
Current page
Text to be displayed on the current page. You can use the tokens. -
First page
Text to be displayed for the first page. -
Last page
Text to be displayed for the last page. -
Connector
Text to be displayed between the left/center and center/right area. If left empty, “…” is displayed. -
Previous
Text to be displayed for the link to the previous page. If left empty, “<” is displayed. You can additionally define if the Previous link is always displayed, never displayed or if it is done automatically. -
Next
Text to be displayed for the link to the previous page. If left empty, “>” is displayed. You can additionally define if the Next link is always displayed, never displayed or if it is done automatically. -
Tooltip text
Text to display in tooltips. You can use the tokens. -
Display
Actually display tooltips? -
Stylesheet
You can define the necessary CSS definitions in two places:- in the style.css file of the current theme
- in a seperate file in the current theme’s directory. The name of the file can be defined here.
— Specific pagebar settings —
-
Automatic insertion
If you would like to get pagebar inserted in the blog automatically you need to select this option and additionally the position where to insert pagebar (see next section). -
Positioning
If you have selected automatic insertion you can select where to insert the pagebar:- Front of postings -> Front of first posting
- Behind postings -> After the last posting
- Footer -> In the footer (footer.php)
(If “Automatic insertion” is not selected these options are disbled.)
-
Integration
You can remove the standard wordpress navigation manually or by setting the “remove old navigation” checkbox.
Remove standard navigation: Remove the standard navigation text of WordPress. This only works if the author of your currently used theme hasn’t changed the CSS class of the standard navigation (“.navigation” that is).
(If “Automatic insertion” is not selected these options are disabled.)
— Specific multipagebar settings —
-
Inherit settings
If you check this option all basic options will be inherited from the postbar settings. Additionally all these options are removed from the multipagebar settings tab. -
All pages link
pagebar gives you the possibility to display all parts of a multipaged post. Checking this setting will add a link behind the pagebar allowing the user to display all parts. -
All pages label
Text display for the “All pages link”.
— Specific commentbar options —
+Inherit settings
If you check this option all basic options will be inherited from the postbar settings. Additionally all these options are removed from the commentbar settings tab.
— Tokens —
Tokens can be used in any display area of pagebar. If it makes sense where you want to use it, you have to decide by yourself.
{page} -> Page number
{total} -> Total number of pages
{current} -> Current page number
Actions
Since v2.60 pagebar contains some actions: pagebar_before/pagebar_after, postbar_before/postbar_after, multipagebar_before/multipagebar_after,
commentbar_before/commentbar_after:
[pagebar_before]
“>
[postbar_before]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
[postbar_after]
[pagebar_after]
Credits
- Lester Chan for his initial idea for this plugin.
- Lise of liseweb.fr for her French translation.
- Michael Preuß for his ” rel = nofollow ” suggestion and for telling me not to include it!
- Monika TS for making me aware of the multiple loops problem.
- Mike of trash-wissen..de for pointing out the feed problem.
- Joern of diekretschmars.de for his various comments and ideas.
- Marco of mafia-daily.com for pointing out problem with theme editor.
- Thomas (koehntopp.com) for his bug report on name collisions.
- chipmint.com for the new default design
- Borisa Djuraskovic for his Serbian translation
- D. Schilling and B. Kau for their i18n support
Installation
-
Make sure you have PHP 5 installed, which is required for this plugin!!!
-
Copy files
Unpack the archive and copy the files into a directory called “pagebar” in
your plugin directory (usually …/wp-content-plugins/). Copy the file “pagebar.css”
into your themes directory or copy the content to the theme’s “style.css” file. -
Adding postbar to your blog posts
There are two ways of inserting postbar into you blog:- automatic
- manual
-
Automatic installation
If you have a simple blog (e.g. the default theme) you can easily add postbar by selecting �Automagic insertion� in the options page. Then you can select where you want the postbar to appear:- Front of postings
- Behind postings
- Footer
+Manual installation
If the automatic insertion is not suitable for your blog because your theme has more than one posting loop you can add postbar manually to your blog by editing some of your themes files. Simply add the following code directly behind The Loop in your index.php and search.php:
if (function_exists('postbar'))
postbar();
Of course you may want to configure postbar to your needs using the option page and by editing the pagebar.css style file.
-
Adding pagebar to your multipaged posts
This pagebar can not be displayed automatically so you have to edit the file “page.php”. If your theme contains the standard navigation for multipaged posts you first have to delete the following code:wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>' . __('Pages:', 'kubrick') . '</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number'));
(The code does not have to look necessarily exactly the same, this example is from the WordPress default theme.) Then you can add the multipagebar to your pages:
if (function_exists('multipagebar'))
multipagebar();
You can customize the display of your multipagebar by editing the settings in the Multipagebar tab on the pagebar option page.
-
Adding pagebar to your paged comments
This pagebar can not be added automatically (there is no action indicating the end of the comment loop) so you have to edit the file “comments.php”. If your theme contains the standard navigation for paged comments you first have to delete the following code:
(The code does not have to look necessarily exactly the same, this example is from the WordPress default theme.) Then you can add the commentbar to your pages:
if (function_exists('commentbar'))
commentbar();
- Upgrading from earlier versions
Important: the old “pagebar()” function has been renamed to “postbar()” since this seems to describe its function better. Nevertheless the old “pagebar()” function is and will be an alias.
pagebar v2.5+ introduces a new database structure for its settings. Formerly there was only one entry in “wp_options” called “pagebar”. Since there are now three different pagebars (“postbar”, “commentbar” and “multipagebar”), the options are splitted into three entries (“postbar”, “commentbar” and “multipagebar” respectively).
After installation (either through WordPress update or manually per FTP) pagebar copies the settings stored in “pagebar” to the new “postbar” entry and sets “commentbar” and “multipagebar” to inherit the settings so everything should look fine without manual interference. The “commentbar” and “multipagebar” have to be installed manually though.
Frequently asked questions
How do I center pagebar?
Simply edit style.css, pagebar.css, or whatever CSS file your defintions are stored: .pagebar { … text-align: center; … }
Changelog
2.67
- Further required security stuff
- Support for removal of newer themes
2.66
- Nonces to prevent CSRF attacks
2.61
- Fixed: tab code in settings pages
- Fixed: remove standard navigation in twenty-eleven
- Fixed: detection of main loop
- Added: Automagic styling of page in Automattic’s twenty-(ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen) themes
2.60.1
- Fixed: Problem with manual insertion of pagebar and parameter error
2.60
- Added: some actions (*_before, *_after)
- Added: Romaian language file. Thanks Web Geek Science (webhostinggeeks.com)
- Changed: default pagebar design
- Fixed: replaced deprecated function clean_url()
- Fixed: Automagic insert of pagebar only in main loop (Thanks to @toscho, @herrllama and @bueltge)
2.59.1
- Fixed: enabling/disabling of positioning options
- Fixed: Replaced “add_contextual_help()” with “$screen->add_help_tab()” for WP >= v3.3
For developers
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FAQ
Pagebar2: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 30, 2026
Is Pagebar2 free?
Yes. Pagebar2 is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Pagebar2 safe to use in 2026?
Pagebar2 shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 900+ sites, is rated 3.7/5 and was last updated 4 years ago, and scores 30/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Pagebar2?
Pagebar2 is active on 900+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 176,614 times since it launched in January 2007. It was downloaded 171 times in the last 30 days.
Does Pagebar2 work with WordPress 7.1?
Pagebar2 is officially tested up to WordPress 6.0.16, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does Pagebar2 need?
Pagebar2 requires PHP 7.4 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Pagebar2 last updated?
The latest version, 2.70, was released on July 31, 2022 (4 years ago).
Who makes Pagebar2?
Pagebar2 is developed and maintained by Lutz Schröer.
What are the best alternatives to Pagebar2?
The most popular alternatives to Pagebar2 are Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Pro… (5M+ installs), Disable Comments (1M+ installs) and Antispam Bee (700K+ installs).
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