Pagination of a document is achieved through the use of an index of predetermined hard breaks within the document. When a selected portion of the document is identified, an immediately prior hard break relative to the selected portion is identified. Active formatting tags applicable to content following the identified hard break are identified to determine proper layout for any intervening pages between the identified hard break and the selected portion. In this manner, a complete and reproducible page can be associated with the selected portion, independent of page number determination. To determine a page number, page counts between hard breaks are stored. A sum of page counts between hard breaks is calculated up to the identified hard break. The final page number is this sum plus the number of pages determined between the identified hard break and the reproducible page.