Add Page Numbers to PDF

How to add page numbers to a PDF

1. Drop your PDF, or click to browse. The page count appears as soon as it loads.
2. Pick a position, a format and a font size. The example line next to the button shows exactly what will be stamped.
3. If your file opens with a cover, tick Skip first page, and change Start numbering at if the count shouldn't begin at 1.
4. Click Add Page Numbers to download the numbered PDF.

Choosing where the number goes

Bottom center is the default because it survives almost everything you do to a document afterwards. When pages are printed double-sided, a bottom-center number lands in the same spot on the front and the back, so nothing has to be mirrored. When the stack is stapled, spiral-bound or three-hole punched, the binding eats the inside edge — the left margin on odd pages, the right margin on even ones — and a corner number can end up hidden under a staple or trimmed off. The middle of the bottom margin is the one place no binding method reaches.

Corners are still worth using when the bottom of the page is busy. Reports with running footers, letterheads or footnote blocks often leave the top corners emptier, and a top-right number is easy to thumb for when someone is flicking through a printed stack looking for a particular page. Bottom right suits single-sided documents that will mostly be read on screen, because the eye finishes each page there. Whichever you choose, the number is placed 36 points — half an inch — from the page edge, which keeps it inside the printable area of virtually every home and office printer; most cannot print closer than about 6mm to the paper edge.

Skipping the cover and starting at a different number

Front matter is the reason both of these options exist. A thesis, a proposal or an annual report normally opens with a title page that should not carry a visible number even though it is still counted as page 1. Ticking Skip first page does exactly that: page 1 is left clean, and page 2 comes out as 2 because the count never stopped.

Starting somewhere other than 1 handles the other half of the problem. Set the start value to 0 and the cover becomes page zero, so the first page of real content is numbered 1 — the convention many style guides ask for. Set it to 24 and the file carries on from a document that ended at 23, which is how you number a chapter destined to be bound into a larger volume. The "of N" formats follow the same count, so the final page always reports the highest number actually printed in the file rather than a raw page total that would contradict it.

Is it private?

Yes. Toolyard writes the page numbers inside your browser, on your own device, using the PDF engine loaded with this page. Your file is never uploaded to a server, so contracts, statements, medical records and unpublished manuscripts stay entirely on your machine. Nothing is stored, logged or shared, and the tool keeps working if you disconnect from the internet after the page has loaded.