Add page numbers to PDF — choose position, style and font size
Built & maintained by Pappu Venkata Subbi Reddy, founder of Clacify · Updated August 2026
Add Page Numbers to PDF stamps page numbers onto every page of a PDF, in your browser. Choose the position (corners or centre, header or footer), the starting number, and the format, then download the numbered file. Many official submissions, legal bundles, assignments, and reports require numbered pages, and scanned or merged PDFs usually arrive without them. Because the file is processed locally with no upload, even confidential documents stay private while you paginate them.
The PDF is loaded with the client-side pdf-lib library. For each page, the tool draws the page number as text at the position and in the format you choose, starting from your chosen number, layered over the existing content. The numbered PDF is then serialised for download. Because pdf-lib does the stamping in your browser's own memory, a confidential bundle can be paginated without a single page ever leaving your machine.
| Document type | Typical position | Numbering style |
|---|---|---|
| Academic thesis/dissertation | Bottom-centre or top-right | Roman numerals (i, ii, iii) for front matter, then Arabic (1, 2, 3) from the first chapter |
| Legal filings & discovery exhibits | Bottom-right | Sequential unique stamp per page (Bates numbering), e.g. ABC00001 |
| Business reports & proposals | Footer, centred | "Page X of Y" so a reader can confirm nothing is missing |
| Forms & government submissions | Top-right | Plain Arabic numerals starting at 1 |
This tool numbers pages sequentially from any starting number you choose — set it to match whichever convention your submission requires.
In formally typeset documents — theses, books, long reports — the title page, table of contents, and preface are numbered with lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii…), while the main content restarts at "1" in Arabic numerals from the first chapter or section. The split signals to a reader exactly where the "real" content begins, and most citation/formatting guides (APA, MLA, Chicago, and most Indian university thesis manuals) require it. If your document needs this split, number the front matter and body as two separate PDFs and merge them afterward.
In litigation and legal discovery, every page of every exhibit gets a unique, permanent identifier — a prefix plus a zero-padded sequence number, like ABC-000001 — so any page can be located instantly regardless of which binder or folder it's filed in. This is called Bates numbering. It's different from a simple "page 1 of 20" count: the numbers keep incrementing across an entire case's documents, not just within one file, so no two pages in the whole matter ever share a number.
A plain running number (1, 2, 3…) is enough for most everyday documents. The "Page X of Y" format is worth using whenever a document might be printed, photocopied, or split apart — it lets anyone holding a single page confirm at a glance whether pages are missing, which matters for contracts, tender submissions, and court bundles where a missing page can be a real problem.
Upload your PDF to Clacify's PDF Page Numbers tool. Choose where to place the page number (e.g. bottom-centre), select the number format, set the starting number, and click Apply. Download the numbered PDF — every page now has a page number in your chosen position.
Yes. The PDF Page Numbers tool lets you set a starting page number — for example, starting from 5 if the first four pages are a cover and table of contents. You can also start from page 1 while skipping the first N pages of the document (treating the cover page as unnumbered).