Add page numbers

How to number the pages of a PDF

Numbers matter the moment a document is printed or read out loud. Nobody can say "look at the third paragraph on page nine" about a file that has no nine on it, and a printed stack with no numbers cannot be put back in order once it is dropped.

1. Drop the PDF on the box at the top.
2. Choose the corner. Bottom middle is the usual place, and bottom outside corner is the usual place for something that will be bound.
3. Choose how it reads: 7 on its own, Page 7, or 7 of 20.
4. If the document has a cover, set where the counting starts, and what that page should be called.
5. Watch the page beside the controls. The number is shown where it will be written.
6. Press Save the PDF.

A cover that is not page one

This is the part most tools get wrong or leave out. A report with a title page and a contents page usually wants the body to start at 1, with the first two sheets left bare. So there are two settings, not one: which page the numbering starts on, and what number that page is given.

Start on page 3 and call it 1, and the first two sheets stay clean while the body reads 1, 2, 3. Start on page 1 and call it 0, and you get the other convention, where the cover is counted but not marked.

Pages before the starting page are left completely alone. Nothing is drawn on them at all.

Sideways pages, and where the number goes

A landscape page, or a page a scanner turned, is stored one way round and read another. The bottom of such a page is not the bottom of the sheet as it is stored, and a tool that ignores that puts the number up the side of the page.

This one reads the turn on each page and puts the number along the bottom edge as the reader sees it, turned to match. A document that mixes upright and sideways pages comes out with its numbers in the same place on every one.

What it writes

Real text in a standard font, drawn on top of the page. It stays searchable and selectable, and it does not touch anything already on the page - nothing is redrawn and nothing is re-squeezed, so the document does not lose any quality.

It does draw over whatever happens to be in that corner. If the document already has numbers, or a footer, move the number further from the edge or pick a different corner, and the preview will show you the clash before you save.