Add a header or footer to a PDF

Add a header and footer to a PDF

Six independent slots — left, centre and right, along the top and the bottom — each taking plain text or a token that fills itself in. Set them once and every page in the range gets the same treatment.

Runs in your browserNothing is uploadedNo account, no watermark

Tokens fill themselves in: {n} page number, {total} page count, {date}, {time} and {filename}. Leave a slot blank to skip it.

How to add a header and footer to a pdf

  1. 1

    Drop in the PDF

    The document is read on your device; nothing is uploaded.

  2. 2

    Fill in the slots you want

    Leave the rest blank. A common setup is the document title top-left, the date top-right and Page {n} of {total} bottom-centre.

  3. 3

    Use tokens for anything that changes

    {n} is the page number, {total} the count, {date} and {time} today's, and {filename} the name of the file you opened.

  4. 4

    Style it and apply

    Choose the font, size, colour and margin, pick a page range, then download.

Written into the page, not stored as a setting

Word processors keep headers as a document property that has to be re-rendered. Here the text becomes ordinary page content, which is why it survives being merged, split, printed or opened in a reader that has never heard of headers.

Tokens count the range, not the file

If you number pages 5 onwards, {total} is the number of pages actually being labelled. That keeps Page 1 of 20 from appearing on a document where only twenty of twenty-four pages carry a header.

The margin is where it matters

Documents that get bound lose 15mm or so into the gutter. Set the margin to clear it, rather than discovering the problem after the print run.

Questions

Yes — set the starting number, so a document with three pages of front matter can begin at 4 where the reader expects it.

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