Add Page Numbers to PDF

Page numbers are drawn onto the pages you choose, in one of nine positions, with a format you pick: plain 1, "Page 1", "1 of 20", or "- 1 -". The starting number and the page range are separate settings, which sounds like a detail until you need it: skip a cover page and still start the body at 1 is exactly this pair of controls.

The preview is live — click a position or move a slider and the page redraws immediately, because the preview and the written output use the same placement math. Numbers are drawn in a standard PDF font that every reader has built in, so the file size barely moves. "1 of 20" counts the pages you numbered, not the whole document, matching what a reader sees on the numbered run.

Numbers become part of the page. If one lands on existing content, increase the margin and watch the preview until it clears — and keep your original file if you might want the unnumbered version later, because removing drawn numbers afterwards is not something any of these tools does.

Placement is computed by the same code that draws the preview, so the live page is a faithful promise of the output. Rendering runs in the worker on this machine, one number per selected page, in a font every PDF reader has built in — no font is embedded, which is why a fully numbered hundred-page document grows by a rounding error.

The separate range and start controls carry the real-world cases: front matter left unnumbered, appendices numbered from their own start, double-sided prints where the numbering skips an inserted blank. What the tool will not do is renumber existing printed numbers — if the pages already carry numbers, drawn numbers will sit alongside them; clean that source first, or number a copy and keep the original.

The double-sided print is where the settings earn their keep: a 40-page manual will be printed on twenty sheets, and the binder needs every page numbered to survive. Number all pages, bottom-center, "- 1 -" format, starting at 1 — then print. When a revised edition drops in later with a new cover, the same settings run again on the new file and the numbering matches the old binder exactly. The result card reports the numbered count, so the binder and the file agree on how many pages exist. A cover page is the other half of the same setting: the range decides which pages get a number at all, and the starting number decides what the first of them says, so a manual whose body should begin at 1 does not have to start at 2 because of its cover.