Add Page Numbers to PDF
Add page numbers to a PDF and decide exactly how they look — position, format, size, colour and the figure to start from. Processed entirely on your own device.
How to use Add Page Numbers to PDF
- Upload your PDF.
- Choose a position and number format (e.g. “1 / N”).
- Set the font size and starting number if needed.
- Click “Add page numbers” and download.
About Add Page Numbers to PDF
Each number is written into the page as ordinary text in a standard font, not painted on as a picture. The string is measured at the chosen size before it is placed, so a centred number really is centred and a right-aligned one keeps the same distance from the edge whether it reads 9 or 148. Because it is genuine text it stays selectable and searchable, prints at the printer’s own resolution rather than the screen’s, and remains crisp at any zoom level instead of softening the way a rasterised stamp does.
Placement is computed in PDF user space, where 72 units make an inch, and measured from each page’s own box rather than from an assumed sheet size. That matters in documents whose pages are not uniform: a report with a landscape appendix or an A3 fold-out gets its number in the correct corner of every page instead of somewhere in the middle of the wide ones. There are six anchors — left, centre and right along both the bottom and the top — each inset by a consistent margin, and the font size and colour are yours to set.
The starting number is the setting people need most and find least often. A document that continues from another file should not restart at one, and a chapter lifted out of a longer work ought to keep the numbers it already had; an explicit start covers both. With the 1 / N format the total shifts to match, so a ten-page file begun at five reads “5 / 14” rather than claiming fourteen pages of its own. What it will not do is skip a page: every page in the document is numbered, cover sheets included, so remove a cover first if it should stay bare.
Numbering stops being cosmetic the moment a document leaves one screen. A reviewer needs to write “the table on page 14” and be understood. Court bundles and tender submissions frequently require continuous pagination as a condition of acceptance. A printed report that gets dropped is trivially reassembled when numbered and a genuine chore when not. Before committing, glance at the strip the numbers will occupy — documents laid out with tight footers can already have body text there, and moving to the top of the page is usually the easier fix.
Frequently asked questions
Where can the numbers be placed?
In any of six anchors: bottom left, bottom centre, bottom right, top left, top centre and top right. Each is inset from the page edge by a consistent margin, so the numbering lines up from page to page even when page sizes vary.
Can I start from a number other than 1?
Yes — set any starting figure. It is what you want when a document carries on from a previous file, or when a section has been extracted from a longer work and needs to keep the numbering readers already know.
Can I leave the cover page unnumbered?
Not directly; every page in the document receives a number. If a cover must stay bare, take it out first with the page organizer, number the remainder, and put the cover back afterwards.
Are the numbers real text or an image?
Real text, drawn with an embedded standard font. They can be selected and copied, a search for a number finds them, and they print at full printer resolution rather than at whatever the screen happened to be showing.
What happens on landscape pages or a mixed-size document?
Each page is measured individually, so the number lands in the right corner of a landscape sheet as reliably as on a portrait one. Nothing is scaled to a common page size, which means the inset stays visually consistent throughout.
Is my document uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read, numbered and saved entirely inside this tab. Nothing is transmitted, so numbering a confidential bundle for review carries no more exposure than opening it in a local reader.
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