Here’s a great pagination helper function I often use in my work. It prints out paginated links like this:

<div class="paginate">    
<strong>1</strong>
<a href="/index/2">2</a>&nbsp;<a href="/index/2">&gt;</a>&nbsp;  
</div>

Create a file with suffix ‘_helper’ (ie. “pagination_helper.php”) and put it in the helpers folder in your CodeIgniter root folder (usually under ‘/application/helpers/’)

if ( ! function_exists('create_pagination'))
{
	/**
	 * The Pagination helper cuts out some of the bumf of normal pagination
	 *
	 * @param string $uri The current URI.
	 * @param int $total_rows The total of the items to paginate.
	 * @param int|null $limit How many to show at a time.
	 * @param int $uri_segment The current page.
	 * @param boolean $full_tag_wrap Option for the Pagination::create_links()
	 * @return array The pagination array. 
	 * @see Pagination::create_links()
	 */
	function create_pagination($uri, $total_rows, $limit = null, $uri_segment = 3, $full_tag_wrap = true)
	{
		$ci = & get_instance();
		$ci->load->library('pagination');

		$current_page = $ci->uri->segment($uri_segment, 0);
		$suffix = $ci->config->item('url_suffix');

		$limit = $limit === null ? 10 : $limit;

		// Initialize pagination
		$ci->pagination->initialize(array(
			'suffix' 				=> $suffix,
			'base_url' 				=> ( ! $suffix) ? rtrim(site_url($uri), $suffix) : site_url($uri),
			'total_rows' 			=> $total_rows,
			'per_page' 				=> $limit,
			'uri_segment' 			=> $uri_segment,
			'use_page_numbers'		=> true,
			'reuse_query_string' 	=> true,
		));

		$offset = $limit * ($current_page - 1);
		
		//avoid having a negative offset
		if ($offset < 0) $offset = 0;
		return array(
			'current_page' => $current_page,
			'per_page' => $limit,
			'limit' => $limit,
			'offset' => $offset,
			'links' => $ci->pagination->create_links($full_tag_wrap)
		);
	}
}