Drupal 7 pager from module fuction not displaying in page.tpl
You just need to add -&gt;extend('PagerDefault');

$query = db_select('mymodule_table', 'uf')-&gt;extend('PagerDefault');


I find the examples module really useful.  They have a pager example.

For what its worth I think using the Drupal db API with theming is a perfectly valid way forward that has a lot of strengths: it's efficient, flexible, powerful and you can put it in version control.  Obviously you should use the best thing for the situation.