Add Header and Footer to PDF

Headers and footers on a finished PDF

In a word processor, a header is a region of the page that repeats. A PDF has no such regions: each page is a fixed drawing, and whatever program made it has already decided what goes where. So adding a header to a PDF means drawing text onto every page at the top, and a footer at the bottom, measured from the edges — which is exactly what this does.

That is the job when the source file is gone or was never yours: a merged bundle of documents, a scanned report, a contract received as a PDF, a set of exhibits that needs a consistent label. Nothing is re-rendered; the text is added on top of each page and the original content is untouched and still searchable.

The tokens

{page} becomes the page number and {pages} the number of the last page, so “Page {page} of {pages}” reads “Page 3 of 12”. Showing the total lets a reader tell at a glance whether a printed copy is complete. {date} inserts today's date in the format you pick — for 3 February 2026 that is “3 February 2026”, “2026-02-03”, “03/02/2026”, or the American “02/03/2026” with the month first. {filename} inserts the file's name without the .pdf, which is how drafts in circulation stay identifiable. {bates} inserts a Bates number with the prefix and number of digits you choose; for a multi-file legal production, the Bates numbering tool is the better fit.

Tokens can be combined with any text — “Exhibit C · page {page}”, “{filename} · printed {date}”, “Confidential — {page}/{pages}” — and placed in any of the six boxes. Click a box, then a token button, to insert it at the cursor.

Layouts that work

For a draft in circulation, put {filename} top left and {date} top right: anyone holding a printout can tell which version it is and when it was printed, which settles most “which copy are you looking at?” arguments before they start. For a report, “Page {page} of {pages}” bottom centre is the convention. For court bundles and exhibits, a label such as “Exhibit B — {page}” in the footer keeps every page attributable once the bundle is taken apart.

Keep it short. A header is read in a glance, and at 9 or 10 points anything longer than a line competes with the document itself. A lighter grey than the body text — the default is a dark grey rather than black — reads as furniture rather than content.

Cover pages and numbering that starts elsewhere

Leave the first page blank keeps the header and footer off a cover page. The numbering still counts it, so the second page says 2 — the convention in most reports. To make the page after the cover page 1 instead, set the number on the first page to 0. The same field continues a sequence across volumes: if the first volume ended at page 84, start the second at 85.

A page range limits the stamp to part of the document, for instance to number the body but not the appendices. {pages} always reports the last page of the whole file, so totals stay correct whichever pages you stamp.

Placement, fonts and print margins

Text is placed relative to the page as displayed. A landscape page stored sideways and rotated for viewing gets its header along the top a reader sees, not down the side, which is a common failure in tools that work in the page's raw coordinates.

Around 24 points from the top and bottom edges — a little under a centimetre — clears the unprintable border of nearly every office printer; much less, and the header can be clipped on paper. Check whether the document already has a footer from its original program: the preview shows the real output, so a clash is visible before you download.

Text is drawn with the standard PDF fonts, Helvetica, Times or Courier, so nothing is embedded and the file barely grows. They cover Western European Latin text; characters such as the rupee sign, curly quotes and dashes are converted automatically, and anything they cannot draw is reported rather than silently lost. For page numbers alone, Add Page Numbers is the simpler tool.