PDFs are tricky. Even though they solve our formatting issues, it’s almost impossible to edit them unless you have powerful PDF editing tools, or a trick or two up your sleeve.

Especially when you want to add something as simple as page numbers to your PDFdocument.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what we’re going to cover below.

This post covers everything from how to add page numbers automatically to how to adjust their formatting

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • How To Add Page Numbers In A PDF Document Online?
  • How To Add Page Numbers In A PDF Document On Mac?
  • How To Add Page Numbers In a PDF Document On Windows?
  • How To Add, Hide, Or Move Page Numbers In A PDF Document In Google Docs?
  • How To Add Page Numbers in a PDF Document in Adobe Acrobat?

If you are looking for ways on how to add page numbers to a PDF, then stick around because we have a few ways in which you can achieve this. Let’s get started! 

How To Add Page Numbers in a PDF Document in Adobe Acrobat?

Adobe Acrobat is almost everyone’s go-to when it comes to PDF documents. 

You can use it to do tons of editing on PDFs with one being adding or tinkering with page numbers. However, you can’t do PDF editing on the free version, you’ll need the paid Adobe Acrobat DC to add page numbers to your PDF documents

Here’s how to do so in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC:

Step 1: Open the PDF editor

Open your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. Click on ‘Tools’, which is on the top left side of the window. 

opening a pdf document with adobe acrobat

Different options will show up, select ‘Edit PDF’ to open the PDF editor. 

open pdf editor

Step 2: Add page numbers

Select the ‘Header & Footer’ tool from the Edit PDF toolbar at the top of the window. 

header and footer button in the toolbar

A drop-down will appear, select ‘Add…’ from it. 

how to add a header or footer to a document

Step 3: Position the page number

On clicking ‘Add…’, the ‘Add Header and Footer’ window will open. 

You’ll have six different positioning options:

  • Left Header Text.
  • Centre Header Text.
  • Right Header Text.
  • Left Footer Text.
  • Centre Footer Text.
  • Right Footer Text.

You’ll also have the option to change the font, underlining, colour, and size of the text. 

In addition to this, you can also adjust the margins

where to adjust the margins for any header or footer

Step 4: Select page number format

In order to change the page number format, click on ‘Page Number and Date Format’, which is on the right side at the bottom of the page number positioning options. 

add formatting to your page numbers

A Page Number and Date Format dialogue box will open. Click on the drop-down next to ‘Page Number Format’ and select whichever format suits you.

select desired formatting for your document

You can also adjust how the page numbers start by adding a number next to ‘Start Page Number’. 

select the starting page of said formatting

Click on ‘Ok’ on the Page Number and Date Format dialogue box. 

Step 5: Select a page range/even-odd pages 

In order to select a page range, click on ‘Page Range Options’, which is directly below the ‘Page Number and Date Format’ link.

editing the page range options

A Page Range Options dialogue box will appear. 

Click on the drop-down next to Subset and select from:

  • All pages in range.
  • Even pages only.
  • Odd pages only.
how to set a page range formatting

Click on ‘Ok’. 

Finally, click on the ‘Insert Page Number’ button, and your page number editing is done.  

apply all changes by clicking the insert page number button

There’s a lot you can do with Adobe to edit your PDF documents.

You also might want to read:

Out-of-the-box PDF generation
The easiest way to automatically generate and manage paperless documents at scale.
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How To Add, Hide, Or Move Page Numbers In A PDF Document In Google Docs?

Another simple way to add page numbers in a PDF is by using Google Docs. However, you’ll need to convert your PDF into a Word file, which requires only two steps on Google Docs.

Convert PDF to a Word File

  1. Open your Google Docs account and click on ‘Blank’
how to create a new blank document in google docs
  1. A new document will open. Now, click on ‘File’, and then ‘Open’. An Open a File dialogue box will open. Navigate to the PDF file that you want to edit and click ‘Open’. 
opening an existing documents through google docs
  1. The PDF file will open as .pdf. In order to make it editable, hover the cursor at the top of the window, and click on ‘Open with’. Select ‘Google Docs’ from the drop-down. Your PDF document will be converted into a word document. 
opening a pdf document with google docs

Follow these two steps to convert your PDF into a word document, so you can play around with page numbers and their formatting without any issue. 

After adding or changing the formatting of the page numbers, convert the word file back to PDF by following the steps at the end of this section. 

How to add page numbers in a PDF document in Google Docs automatically?

If you don’t want any specific formatting on your page numbers, then you can choose to add and update them automatically. Here’s how:

  1. Once your PDF document is converted, click on ‘Insert’ and select ‘Header & page number’. 
header and page number options in google docs
  1. Click on ‘Page number’ from the expanded list. You’ll get different options on whether you want the page numbers to appear in the header or the footer. Choose whichever best suits you. The first option is for header page numbers and the third option, just below the header page numbers, is for the footer page numbers. 
opening the settings for page number format editting

How to add page numbers from a different page in Google Docs?

If you have a cover page in your document, then you probably don’t want it to have a page number. You can start your page numbering from page 2 by following the below steps.

  1. After converting your PDF document, click on ‘Insert’, select ‘Header & page number’, and then choose ‘Page number’. 
  2. Choose the second option to start page numbering from page 2 in the header and select option four to start page numbering from page 2 in the footer. 
option to start numbering at page 2

Page numbers will appear from the second page. 

How to hide the page number on the first page in Google Docs?

If you want your first page to be Page 1, but don’t want it to have a page number, then follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the first page of the document and click on the header or the footer (wherever the page number is located).
  2. There, you’ll see a ‘Different first page’ check box; click on it. 
how a different first page check box looks like in google docs
  1. Highlight the page number and press Delete. 
  2. Click anywhere outside of the header or footer, the page number will be gone. Page two will still be marked as 2. 

How to move page numbers in Google Docs?

Google Docs has a default page number alignment setting on the right. In order to change it, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the header or footer, wherever your page number is located. 
  2. Change the alignment setting from the toolbar. The page numbers setting will be updated. 
to change the position of a page number, change the alignment setting

Convert Word to PDF in Google Docs

After making changes to the page numbers of your document, convert it back to PDF by following these steps:

Click on ‘File’ and select ‘Download’. Choose ‘PDF document (.pdf)’.

how to convert a word document into PDF in google docs

You’ll find the downloaded PDF file in the Downloads folder. 

Did you know that you can also edit your PDF documents from Google Docs Directly?

Be sure to also read:

How To Add Page Numbers In a PDF Document On Windows?

It’s rather difficult to add page numbers to a PDF on windows if your system lacks a powerful PDF editor. 

One of the easiest ways to do this is with EaseUS PDF Editor. You can use its free trial to test it out before spending your money. Here’s how you can add page numbers through it:

Step 1: Download and install EaseUS PDF Editor

You can either download the free version of EaseUS PDF Editor or purchase the full version.

Step 2: Import PDF

After downloading and installing the PDF editor, launch it, and click on the ‘Open Files…’ button at the bottom of the window. 

opening a file from the EaseUS PDF editor

Step 3: Add page numbers

After opening your PDF document, click on ‘Pages’, which is at the top left corner of the window. You’ll see a toolbar on your right side with multiple PDF editing options. Click on ‘Header & Footer’, and then choose ‘Add’. 

steps to follow when adding numbers to a pdf document

Step 4: Format the page numbers 

On clicking add, the Add Headers and Footers window will open. Here, you can choose different formatting for page numbers, for instance, their font, size, and margin setting. You can also choose where you want them to appear, i.e., in the header or footer. Click on ‘Insert Page Number’ to start numbering the pages. 

formatting page numbers in the windows program

How To Add Page Numbers In A PDF Document On Mac?

Preview offers a manual solution of adding page numbers to a PDF document. If you want automated ways, then either use Acrobat Pro DC or EaseUS PDF Editor; we have explained the steps above. 

Here’s how you can use Preview to add page numbers: 

Step 1: Open PDF in Mac Preview

Preview is the default program to open images and PDFs on Mac, so double click on your PDF document to open it automatically in Preview. 

Step 2: Open the Markup Toolbar 

After opening the PDF, click on ‘View’ on the top toolbar, and select ‘Show Markup Toolbar’.

ways of opening the markuo toolbar on mac devices

Step 3: Add page numbers

Click on ‘T’ to add a text box. You can also access the text box tool by clicking ‘Tools’, then ‘Annotate’, and then ‘Text’. Insert the page number in the text box and drag it to the location where you want the page number to appear. Repeat the same procedure for all the pages. 

adding the page numbers manually to the document

For more info on editing and managing PDF documents on a Mac, be sure to also read:

How To Add Page Numbers In A PDF Document Online?

If your PDF doesn’t contain any sensitive information, then you can add page numbers to it through online tools. 

One easy way to add page numbers to PDF documents online is through PDF24 Tools.

Here’s how.

Step 1: Upload the PDF online

Open PDF24 Tools. Click on ‘Choose files’ and navigate to the PDF that you want to edit. Click ‘Open’ to upload the document. 

uploading pdf documents into an online page numbering tool

Step 2: Add page numbers

On uploading the document, you’ll notice that multiple formatting tools will appear at the bottom of the window. Use them to edit the font, position, size, colour, angle, offset, and spacing of the page numbers. 

You might get confused with the text in the Pattern section. Hover over it and a small pop-up will appear explaining the text.

Click on ‘Add page numbers’ to start numbering. 

automatically adding page numbers with an online generator

Step 3: Download the PDF

The tool will start numbering the pages. On completion, a new box will appear below the document with multiple options. You can choose between download, preview, delete, and restart. 

Click on the Download button to start downloading the numbered PDF. 

downloading the numbered pdf

Conclusion

Hope this guide to adding page numbers to a PDF document was helpful!

As you might have noticed, there are a number of different ways to add numbers. Depending on your device (Mac, Windows, iPhone, etc.), though, the steps can be easier or more complicated.

Now, if you’re looking for even more ways to edit and manage your PDF documents, you’ll also want to read:

Out-of-the-box PDF generation
The easiest way to automatically generate and manage paperless documents at scale.
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