Add Page Numbers to a PDF

How it works

1. Choose the PDF, or drop the whole folder of them, up to twenty at once. Nothing is uploaded, they are read on your device.
2. Pick the corner, the wording and the size. Add a line of your own text if the packet needs a job name on every sheet. A folder also asks one more question: run the numbers straight through the set, or start each file again at one.
3. Download. Every page comes back stamped with the original content untouched underneath. One file comes back as a file, a folder comes back as one zip with the same names inside.

What you get

• Six positions, three along the bottom and three along the top
• Four wordings: 1, Page 1, 1 of 12, or Page 1 of 12
• A start number, for a packet that continues from another document
• A first page skip, for a cover sheet that should stay clean
• A line of your own text on every page, such as a job name or a permit number
• Sideways pages handled, so the number lands on the edge the reader is looking at
• A whole folder in one go, up to twenty files, numbered straight through in name order so the set reads 1 to the end
• Or each file numbered on its own, starting again at one, when they are twenty separate documents rather than one packet

Why a numbered packet wins arguments

The moment a job goes sideways, everything turns into references. The scope on page 4, the exclusion at the bottom of page 9, the signature on page 12. If your submittal has no numbers, every one of those becomes a description instead of a citation, and a description is arguable.

It is the same reason courts number every page of everything. You do not need a lawsuit for it to pay off. A change order conversation that starts with see page 6 finishes faster than one that starts with somewhere in the contract.

Number the packet after you merge it

Numbering the parts and then joining them gives you four page ones. Join first in merge PDF, get the order right, and number the finished document last. That is also the order to fix rotation in, because a page that is turned after numbering keeps its number in the old corner.

The start number field exists for the case where a packet is genuinely volume two. Set it to 41 and page one of this file reads 41.

A permit packet is a folder, not a file

Merging first is still the right answer when the packet ships as one document, and it is the answer above. It is not the answer when the other end will not take one document. Plenty of permit portals want the structural set, the mechanical set and the energy forms uploaded separately, one file per discipline. Plenty of closeout requirements are the same. You cannot merge those, and numbering them one file at a time gives you four page ones, which is the exact problem merging was supposed to solve.

So hand over the folder instead. Up to twenty files at once, and the numbering runs straight through the set: the cover is page 1, the next file picks up at page 2, and Page 34 of 96 means the same thing to you and to the plan reviewer even though it is sitting in the fourth file. They come back as one zip called pdfs-numbered.zip with your own names inside.

The order is the file name order, the same order a folder window shows them in, and it counts numbers the way you meant them: 2-framing.pdf comes before 10-roof.pdf, not after it. If your files are not already named in the order the packet reads, rename them before you drop them. That is the one thing this cannot guess.

If they are not one packet, say so and each file is numbered on its own, starting again at the number you set. Twenty signed waivers off twenty different jobs are twenty documents, not one, and running a single sequence through them would be wrong. The cover sheet skip follows the same logic: on a packet it leaves the very first page clean, and on files counted separately it leaves the first page of each one clean.

The line of your own text

The optional text sits on the opposite side of the same edge as the number, and it goes on every page. Use it for the thing that identifies the packet without opening it: a job name, a lot number, a permit application number, or your company name on a submittal that will be photocopied.

Keep it short. It is stamped, not wrapped, so a long sentence will run off the edge of the page.

It is stamped into the page

The number is drawn into the page content, like a stamp, not added as an annotation that a reader can toggle off. It prints, it photocopies and it survives being scanned back in. It also cannot be edited out later, which is usually what you want on a document you are submitting.

Keep your original. There is no undo inside a stamped file, so if you need a clean copy later, keep the one you started from.

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