Add Page Numbers to PDF

Nine positions, plus facing pages. Numbers can sit in any corner, centred at the top or bottom, or in the middle of the page. Turn on Facing pages and the number mirrors itself — right edge on odd pages, left edge on even pages — so it always lands on the outer corner of a printed, double-sided booklet. Most online tools stop at six positions and skip the mirroring entirely.

Formats: 1, Page 1, 1 / 12, Page 1 of 12, or your own. The presets cover what nearly everyone needs. If you need something specific — Exhibit A – 3, Draft · 3 of 40, or the file name next to the number — switch to Custom and combine {n}, {total} and {file} in any order. You can also switch the number style to roman numerals (i, ii, iii or I, II, III) or letters, which is how a preface or appendix is traditionally numbered — something most page-number tools simply cannot do.

Start on any page, at any number — you can add page numbers to a PDF from page 2, page 5, or wherever the body begins. Set Start numbering at to 1 if the cover should not count, or to 2 if it should. Pick exactly which pages get a number with the range box — 2- numbers everything from page 2 on, 5-9 numbers a section, odd or even targets one side of a double-sided print. If you use Page 1 of 12, choose whether the 12 means the whole document or only the pages you numbered. Numbering the preface i–iv and the body from 1? Run the tool twice with two different ranges.

Fonts, size, colour and margin — how the numbers look once you add page numbers to the PDF. Helvetica, Times and Courier are the fonts built into every PDF reader, so the numbers render identically everywhere and add nothing to the file size. Set the size from 6 to 28 pt, toggle bold or italic, and pick a colour — white numbers on a dark presentation, for example. The margin comes in three presets, and a white background box keeps the number readable when it lands on a photo or a chart. Pages that were rotated to landscape keep their numbers upright; if a page is still sideways, fix it with the rotate PDF tool first.

Other ways to add page numbers to a PDF — and their catches. Adobe Acrobat Pro can do it through Header & Footer, but the free Acrobat Reader cannot, and Adobe's online tool makes you sign in before you can save the result. Preview on the Mac has no page-numbering feature at all; you would have to place a text box on every page by hand. Word and Google Docs add numbers nicely — but only before you export, and they can't reopen a PDF you already have. Developers can script it with pypdf and reportlab, or typeset with LaTeX. Every option here does the same job in one screen, on your device, with a preview before you download.