Add page numbers to a PDF
Number the pages of a PDF, in the position and format the document actually needs.
Free · No sign-up · Your file never leaves your computer
No file handy? — generated here, not downloaded.
How to use it
- 1
Add the PDF.
- 2
Choose where the number sits and whether it reads "4" or "4 of 12".
- 3
Set the starting number, and skip the first page if it is a cover.
- 4
Download.
When you would use this
Page numbers stop being cosmetic the moment a document is printed, signed or argued over. An unnumbered contract cannot be referred to in a meeting without everyone counting. A submission that arrives as loose sheets cannot be reassembled with confidence. A bundle sent to a client and then queried by page is guesswork if the pages have no numbers on them.
"4 of 12" earns its keep on anything printed. It is the only format that tells the reader whether they are holding the whole document, which is exactly what matters when a stapler or a scanner has been involved. Plain numbers are cleaner and fine on screen, where nothing can go missing.
The start number exists for documents that are part of something bigger. An annexure that continues from a main document should carry on its numbering rather than restarting, or the combined bundle has two page ones. Skipping the first page is the matching case for a cover sheet, which conventionally is not numbered even though it is counted.
Rotated pages are handled properly, which sounds like a detail and is not. A PDF page draws in its own coordinate space regardless of how it is displayed, so on a landscape sheet stored as a rotated portrait page, a naively placed number lands on what the reader sees as the side edge. The rotation is read and compensated for, because the one thing a page number has to be is in the same place on every page.
Numbers are drawn on top of the existing content. On a page with something already at the bottom edge they will overlap, so if your document has a footer, put the numbers top right instead.
Questions
- Can I start at a number other than one?
- Yes. Set the start number — useful when an annexure continues from a main document and restarting at one would give the bundle two page ones.
- How do I leave the cover page unnumbered?
- Tick 'skip the first page'. It stays clean, and numbering begins on the page after it.
- The number is overlapping my footer.
- Move it to the top right. Numbers are drawn over the existing content rather than reflowing it, so a document with its own footer needs the other position.
- Does it work on landscape or rotated pages?
- Yes. Page rotation is read and compensated for, so numbers land in the same visual place on every page rather than on the side edge.
- Is my document uploaded?
- No. It is numbered inside your browser and never sent anywhere.
Related tools
Numbering a bundle you assembled by hand
Ofivio builds the submission from the records themselves — drawings, schedules and letters already belonging to the project — so the bundle is generated rather than collated.
See Ofivio