Add page numbers to a PDF

How to use it#

1. Drop a PDF onto the box above, or click it to choose one.
2. Choose the position, the format, and the size. The preview updates as you change them.
3. To leave a cover or contents page bare, change Start on page. First number sets where the count begins.
4. Download the numbered PDF. The original is left as it was.

Where the numbers go#

Bottom centre is the convention for reports, essays, and most printed documents. Bottom right suits anything read by flicking through, such as a manual or a bound printout, since the number sits at the edge the thumb holds. The top positions are there for documents whose footer is already taken by something else.

Every position is measured from the page as it is displayed, half an inch in from the edge, or less on a page too small for that. A page stored sideways and turned for display gets its number along the bottom a reader sees, the right way up, not along the edge the file happens to call the bottom.

Covers, contents pages, and continuing a count#

A title page usually goes unnumbered, and a report with a contents page often starts counting after it. Set Start on page to the first page that should carry a number, and every page before it is left alone. The count then starts at 1 on that page, or at whatever first number you give.

The first number matters when a document is one part of something longer: chapter two of a thesis that starts on page 31, or an appendix continuing the count of the report it belongs to. The 1 of 10 format counts to the last number printed, so a document numbered from its second page reads 1 of 9 through 9 of 9.

What changes in the file#

Each number is added to its page as ordinary text in Helvetica, a font every PDF reader has built in, so no font has to be embedded and the file grows by a couple of hundred bytes a page. Everything already on the page is left exactly as it was: text stays selectable, links keep working, and nothing is flattened into an image.

The numbers are written into the page itself, rather than added as a comment or a layer that can be switched off, so they print and they show in every reader. If the document already has page numbers, the old ones stay, and the new ones go wherever you put them.