Add page numbers
Drop a PDF here or click to choose
Choose a PDF. The preview shows where the number will sit.
Put a page number in a corner or at the center of the top or bottom edge. The download keeps the original text selectable.
How to use
- Open the PDF. The preview draws the number for the page you are looking at, using the start value and the format.
- Pick a position, a format, a type size, and how far the number sits from the edge. Tick Skip the first page when the file starts with a cover.
- Add numbers, then download. Check a middle page and the last page. Pages after 40 are not numbered.
What the number is
The number is a small picture of text, placed on the page the way Sign PDF places a signature. It is not a PDF page-label dictionary, and it does not replace a number that was already typeset in a footer. If the source already says "12" in the corner, you will see two numbers unless you crop that old footer off first or cover it with a black box.
The start value is the number printed on the first page that receives a stamp. If you skip the cover and start at 1, the second sheet says 1. If you start at 4, that sheet says 4 and the next says 5. The "1 / 10" format uses the count of pages that are stamped, not the count of pages in a longer original that was cut off at 40.
Sideways pages use the same placement as signatures, so a number that looks centered on the preview stays centered in the download. Still open the file. A page with an unusual crop box can put the number closer to the edge than the preview suggested.
The typeface is a plain sans. Digits, spaces, and the slash are safe. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are not drawn, because this stamp has no font for those characters. For a short English note that is not a page number, use Edit PDF.
Example. A 6-page file, skip the cover, start at 1, format "1 / 10". The cover gets no number. The second sheet says 1 / 5, because five pages were stamped, not six. The next sheet says 2 / 5. If you instead start at 4 and do not skip the cover, the first sheet says 4 and the last says 9.
Do this after the page list is final
Number the file after you reorder or delete pages and after you merge. Numbering first, then deleting a page, leaves a gap. Numbering after a crop keeps the inset measured from the new edge.
A number does not lock the file. Anyone who can edit PDFs can cover it. If the file should not open without a password, run Protect PDF last. This page refuses a file that is already encrypted.
The original text stays text. Unlike Compress PDF, this does not flatten the page. Copy and search still work on the words that were already there. The new number itself is an image, so selecting it as live text may fail. That is normal for this method.
Questions
Can I remove numbers that are already on the page?
Not with this tool. Crop the margin if the old number sits in a clean band, or cover it. Covering does not delete the old text from the file.
Does "skip first page" shift the numbers?
The skipped page gets no stamp. The next page receives the start number you typed, not start plus one.
Will this work on a scanned PDF?
Yes. The number is drawn on top of the scan. The scan itself stays an image.
Why only 40 pages?
Each page is stamped in the browser tab. Longer files should be split, numbered, and merged.