Add Page Numbers
Add page numbers to every page of your PDF.
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Add page numbers to every page of your PDF.
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1, 2, 3, dashed - 1 -, bracketed [1], or Page 1 of N with the total filled in automatically.Nothing is uploaded — the document is numbered and rewritten inside this browser tab.
Bottom centre is the default for a reason: it is where readers look, it survives most binding, and it clashes with existing content less often than anywhere else.
Bottom right is the convention for documents read as spreads, since it falls on the outer edge of the right-hand page and is the corner a reader's thumb reaches for. Bottom left and the top positions are useful mainly when the natural spot is already occupied — a footer with a company name, a running header, or a scanned document that already carries printed numbers you would rather not sit on top of.
The margin is measured in points, at 72 to the inch. The default of 30 points sits just under half an inch from the edge, which reads comfortably and stays clear of the unprintable border on most desktop printers. Some useful values: 20 points is tight and modern, 36 points is a half inch, and 54 points gives you three-quarters of an inch if the document is going to be hole-punched or perfect-bound.
If a number lands on top of existing content, move it rather than shrinking it — the opposite corner is almost always free.
Real documents rarely begin counting on their first sheet, and this one field handles most of those cases.
Front matter that should not be counted. A report with a cover and a contents page where the body should start at 1: split the front matter off with Split PDF, number the body starting at 1, and merge them back.
A section of a larger work. Chapter 4 begins on page 87 of the bound volume. Set the start to 87 and the numbering matches the printed original, so cross-references still work.
A document that continues another. Volume two of a two-part submission picks up where volume one stopped.
Numbering from zero. Set the start to 0 when the first sheet is a title page that convention says is unnumbered but still counted.
The Page 1 of N format accounts for the offset, so starting at 87 in a 20-page document reads Page 87 of 106 rather than misreporting the total.
Numbers are drawn as real text using an embedded standard font, not stamped as images. That has three practical consequences: they are selectable and searchable, so Ctrl+F for a page number works and a screen reader announces it; they stay razor sharp at any zoom and in print, because they are vector glyphs rather than pixels; and they add almost nothing to the file size.
The rest of the document is untouched. Existing text stays selectable, images keep their resolution, and form fields keep working. Numbering does not rasterise your document or re-compress anything.
Each number is positioned against its own page's dimensions, so a document mixing A4, Letter and landscape pages gets numbers correctly placed on all of them rather than at one fixed coordinate that only suits one size.
Numbering is nearly always the last step, because every other page operation invalidates it. Merge, split, insert, delete and reorder all change which page sits where, and printed numbers are ink — they do not renumber themselves.
So: assemble the document with Merge and Insert Pages, take out what does not belong with Delete Pages, get the sequence right with Reorder Pages, straighten anything sideways with Rotate — and then number it. Doing it in that order means numbering once.
For legal and evidential bundles that need a fixed identifier on every page rather than a running count, Watermark PDF stamps consistent text across the document, and Sign PDF handles dated signature blocks.
They are placed in the margin at the position and offset you choose, which is clear on most documents. If a footer already occupies the bottom of the page, move the numbers to a top corner or increase the margin — the opposite corner is nearly always free. Adjusting the position beats shrinking the type, which just makes the numbers hard to read.
The four formats are plain numerals, dashed, bracketed, and Page 1 of N. For front matter set in Roman numerals, the usual approach is to number the body normally and handle the preliminary pages separately: Split the front matter off, add its numbering with Edit PDF or Watermark, then Merge the document back together.
Yes. They are drawn as real text in an embedded font, so they are selectable, searchable, copyable and readable by screen readers — and they print crisply at any size because they are vector glyphs rather than an image.
One run applies one format throughout, which is what a single document normally wants. For a document with genuinely different sections, Split it into those sections, number each with its own format and start value, then Merge the parts back in order.
Numbers become part of the page content once written. Edit PDF has a White-Out tool that covers an area in matched colour, which handles a corner cleanly, and you can then add a fresh sequence here. This is why numbering last is worth the discipline.
Handled. Each number is positioned relative to its own page's dimensions, so A4, Letter and landscape pages all get correctly placed numbers in the same run.
Yes. The numbers are drawn on top of the scanned image as real text, so they are selectable even though the rest of the page is not. To make the whole document searchable, run it through OCR as well.
No. The PDF is read, numbered and rewritten inside this browser tab, then handed to your downloads. Disconnect from the network before you start and it still works.
Privacy: Page numbering happens locally through pdf-lib. No upload, no copy, no logging — your document is yours throughout.