How to Add Page Numbers to a PDF (and Skip the Cover)

Number the pages of a PDF in the header or footer: choose 1, Page 1 or 1 of 10, skip the cover page and start from any number. Free, in your browser.

A 40-page report without page numbers is hard to discuss ("it's the page with the blue chart…") and hard to put back in order once it's printed. Plenty of PDFs end up unnumbered — merged scans, exported slides, documents put together from several files. Adding numbers takes about a minute.

How to add page numbers to a PDF

1. 1

   Open Add Page Numbers

   Go to Add Page Numbers and add your PDF. A live preview of the first page appears.

2. 2

   Choose a position

   Tap one of six spots: the top or bottom of the page, on the left, in the center or on the right. Bottom center is the default.

3. 3

   Pick a format

   Choose 1, 1 of 10, Page 1, Page 1 of 10, 1 / 10 or - 1 -.

4. 4

   Adjust the style

   Pick a font (Sans, Serif or Mono), a size from 8 to 24 pt, a margin (Small, Normal or Large) and a colour: black, gray, blue or red. The preview updates as you go.

5. 5

   Download

   Click Add Page Numbers & Download. The new file's name ends in -numbered.pdf.

Which format should I use?

How to skip the cover page

Turn on Don't number the first page. The cover stays clean and numbering starts on page two. Start at decides which number that page gets:

• Start at 1: the page after the cover is page 1. The cover isn't counted, so in a 10-page file the 1 of 10 format runs from "1 of 9" to "9 of 9".
• Start at 2: the page after the cover is page 2, as if the cover were page 1, and the total reads 10.

You can start at any number. That's useful when the PDF is one chapter of a longer document and should begin at, say, page 31.

Printing double-sided? Mirror the numbers

In a printed book, page numbers sit on the outer edge: on the right of odd pages and on the left of even pages. Choose a left or right position and turn on Mirror on facing pages, and PDFDoco moves the number to the other side on even-numbered pages.

Good to know

• Numbers go on every page, apart from the first if you skip it. To number only one section, split it out with Split PDF, number it, then put the parts back together with Merge PDF.
• Your pages aren't touched. Numbers are added as sharp text on top. Nothing is re-compressed, and existing text stays selectable and searchable.
• Landscape and rotated pages get their number upright, in the position you chose.
• The preview shows the first numbered page. If other pages have content close to the edge, open the downloaded file and check that the numbers don't overlap it.
• Password-protected PDFs need unlocking first with Unlock PDF.

Legal documents: Bates numbering

Law firms and courts often need a unique stamp on every page — a prefix and a zero-padded number like ABC000001 — that carries on across a whole set of files. That's Bates numbering, and PDFDoco's Bates Numbering tool does it in your browser too.