Add Page Numbers to PDF
Add page numbers to a PDF as new text, with a chosen format, starting number, position and standard font. Existing page content is copied unchanged.
Tool workspace
Nothing is uploaded. Files are read in this tab and stay on your machine.
Add page numbers
Save your download before you leave the page — it exists only in this tab.
How do I add page numbers to a PDF?
Select one PDF and check the page count shown.
Set the number format, the number to start at, the position and the font, then choose which pages to number.
Select Add page numbers and save the result before leaving the page.
How are page numbers added without changing the pages?
Add page numbers to a PDF as new text, positioned where you choose. The existing page content is copied unchanged and the numbers are drawn on top as separate content.
Each number is written as new drawing instructions added to the page, in one of the standard PDF fonts that readers provide themselves, so no font is embedded. The page is not redrawn. The existing page drawing is fenced off, so settings left over in it cannot move or recolour the numbers, and the fonts already named in the file are never overwritten.
How Xenmark makes it easy to add page numbers to a PDF
Numbering in the wording you want
Type any text around {n} and {total}, such as Sheet {n} of {total}. Nothing else in what you type is interpreted.
Nothing leaves your machine
Nothing is uploaded. Files are read in this tab and processed in memory, with no account and no server for them to go to.
Carry the count on from another volume
Choose the number the count begins from, including 0, so a document that continues an earlier one does not restart at 1.
Nine places on the page
Put the number at the top, middle or bottom, and at the left, centre or right, with a margin from the edge set in points.
Six standard faces, clearly labelled
Choose Helvetica, Times or Courier, regular or bold. Courier is marked for exact placement, and the others are flagged as approximate when used.
Nothing to install
It runs in the browser you already have. There is no plug-in, no desktop application and no sign-up to get through first.
Limitations
What this tool does not do, stated up front.
Characters a standard font cannot write are refused rather than substituted, and the message names them.
Courier positions exactly because it is monospaced by design. The proportional faces are positioned from an average advance, so their placement is approximate and is reported as such.
A digitally signed PDF will no longer validate once numbers are added; keep the signed original.
Questions
Can I start PDF page numbers at a number other than 1?
Yes. Set the starting number, and the first stamped page takes it. The total is adjusted to match, so a document continuing from another reads correctly.
Can I add Page 1 of 10 to a PDF?
Yes. Type Page {n} of {total} as the format: {n} becomes each page’s number and {total} the number on the last stamped page.
Does this change the existing pages?
No. Page content, images and embedded fonts are copied unchanged, and bookmarks, form fields, page labels, attachments and document properties are kept. The numbers are drawn as separate content on top of each page.
Why did Xenmark build a free page-numbering tool?
Xenmark AS is a Norwegian software company building browser-based drawing review tools for owners, consultants, operators and other teams that receive and review technical drawings. Those teams handle PDFs every day, and not every file should be sent to a website just to merge, split or check it — a tender document, a client’s drawing set, a revision that is not released yet. So these everyday tools are free and run entirely in your browser: no account, no upload step, and no server ever receives the file. You can check that yourself — open your browser’s network tab, number a short document, and watch nothing leave. What this tool cannot do is listed under Limitations above.
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