How to add page numbers to a PDF
- Look at the existing margins
Choose a position that is genuinely empty. Bottom centre is safe on most exam papers; bottom right often collides with a board's own footer.
- Pick a style
'1 of 24' is worth the extra characters on anything you will print, because it tells you immediately if a page is missing.
- Add a prefix if several documents will be printed together
'Paper 2 - 3 of 12' is unambiguous on a shared desk.
- Stamp and check the first and last pages
Those are where collisions show up.
Why this matters for exam and study documents
Print a merged revision pack without numbers, drop it, and you have a genuinely unrecoverable afternoon. 'X of Y' numbering is thirty seconds of insurance.
What is kept, what changes, and what this will not do
These change how a document presents itself rather than what it contains - with one important exception, which is that cropping hides content without removing it.
Kept
- All existing content, including any numbers already printed on the page
- Text, fonts, images and the searchable text layer
Changed
- A new text object is drawn onto each page
- Existing content underneath the number is overprinted, not removed
Limits
- Numbers are stamped over whatever is already there. Choose an empty corner.
- There is no roman-numeral or per-section numbering.
Questions and answers
Will this replace the numbers already printed on the page?
No. It adds new ones. If the old numbers conflict, crop them off first or choose a different corner.
Can I start at a number other than 1?
Yes, under advanced options. Useful when a document is one part of a longer sequence.
Can I number only some pages?
You can skip the first page. Beyond that, extract the section, number it, and merge it back.