everyday mac tools

How to add page numbers to a PDF on a Mac when Preview cannot

· 6 min read

Preview cannot add page numbers to a PDF. It has no header, footer or numbering command, and its Markup tools place a text box on one page at a time. The dependable route is to number the document before it becomes a PDF: put a page number field in the footer in Pages or whichever word processor made it, then export again. If all you have is the PDF, you either number a short one by hand or use a PDF tool that stamps text onto existing pages.

Start with what you actually have

The right method depends on where the PDF came from, so answer that first.

You made it. A report, a résumé, a manuscript: somewhere there is a Pages, Keynote or word processor file that produced the PDF. Number that and export again. The numbers become part of the page like any other text, which is the cleanest result.

It is text, a note or a web page. TextEdit and Safari can both print a header and footer with a page count, and the print dialog can save the result as a PDF.

You only have the PDF. A scan, a file someone sent you, three documents you merged into one. There is no built-in way to number these properly, which leaves a manual workaround for short files and a PDF tool for anything longer.

One thing that catches people: the numbers under the thumbnails in Preview’s sidebar, and the page number you type into Go, Go to Page, are the viewer’s own. They are not printed on the page. Print the file or open it on a phone and they are gone. When someone asks for “a PDF with page numbers”, they mean numbers on the page.

Number it in Pages and export again

  1. Open the document in Pages and click Document in the toolbar.
  2. On the Document tab, make sure Footer is ticked (Header too, if you want the number at the top).
  3. Move the pointer to the bottom of a page. Three footer fields appear: left, center and right. Click into the one you want.
  4. Choose Insert, Page Number. For “Page 3 of 12”, type “Page “, insert the page number, type ” of “, then choose Insert, Page Count.
  5. To keep the number off a cover page, open the Section tab in the same sidebar and tick Hide on first page of section.
  6. To start the count somewhere other than 1, change the page numbering on the Section tab from Continue from previous section to Start at, and enter the number. This is how chapter files that become one book keep a running sequence.
  7. Choose File, Export To, PDF, and save it under a new name so the earlier PDF stays as it was.

Other word processors work the same way in outline: a page numbers command, usually in the Insert menu, sets the position and alignment, a format option sets the starting number, and a different-first-page setting in the header and footer options keeps the cover clean. Then save or export with PDF as the format. The wording varies between apps and versions.

Keynote is simpler. Select all the slides in the navigator, and in the Format sidebar, under Appearance, tick Slide Number. Then File, Export To, PDF.

Print to PDF from an app that adds them

Two apps that ship with macOS can put a page count on paper, and the print dialog can turn paper into a PDF.

TextEdit. Choose File, Print. Among TextEdit’s options in the dialog, tick Print header and footer. The header carries the file name and the date; the footer carries the page count. Then open the PDF pop-up at the bottom of the dialog and choose Save as PDF.

Safari. File, Print, then tick Print Headers and Footers. Safari adds the page title, the web address, the date and a page count, which is useful for saving an article or a receipt with its source on every page.

Neither helps with a PDF you already have. Preview’s print dialog has no header or footer option, so printing a PDF to a new PDF gives you the same pages without numbers.

When all you have is the PDF

For a short file, number it by hand in Preview. This is honest for a six-page document and miserable for sixty.

  1. Duplicate the file first (File, Duplicate), and work on the copy.
  2. Choose Tools, Annotate, Text. A text box appears on the page.
  3. Type the number, set the font and size from the Markup toolbar, and drag the box to the bottom of the page.
  4. Copy the box, move to the next page, paste, change the number and drag it into line.
  5. Save.

Know what you have made. Each number is an annotation: a separate object sitting on the page, which anyone can click, move or delete, and which some viewers do not display at all. For a handout that is fine. For anything that will be cited by page, it is fragile.

Ask for the original. If the PDF came from a colleague, the source file with a footer added is a two-minute job at their end and a better result than anything you can do to the PDF.

Use a PDF tool that stamps pages. The job is drawing text onto every page of an existing file, which Preview, Automator and the print dialog cannot do. Basalt has a Watermark tool that also does headers and footers, and a separate Bates Numbers tool. Like each of its eighteen tools, they write a new file and leave the original untouched. It is free for 24 hours with every tool, so try it on a copy and confirm the footer gives you the format you need before you rely on it. Add a watermark, header or footer to a PDF covers the other things people stamp along the edge of a page.

If the numbers are for a legal production, plain page numbers are the wrong thing. You want a Bates number, a sequence that continues across every file and is never reused. Bates numbering on a Mac explains the difference and the scheme to decide before you stamp anything.

Decide these before you number anything

Number the final version. Delete, insert and reorder pages first. A number added before you remove page 4 leaves a document that skips from 3 to 5, which tells the reader something is missing.

Merge first if the count should run through. Three files combined into one should usually read 1 to 40, not 1 to 12 three times. Merge, then number. If each part should keep its own sequence (appendices, separate exhibits), number each file first and merge afterwards. Merge PDFs on a Mac covers the merge.

Choose a spot that is empty on every page. Bottom center is conventional and usually clear. Scans and documents with their own footers need checking page by page, because a stamped number lands on top of whatever is already there. Keep it at least half an inch in from the edge; most printers cannot print right to the edge of the paper, and a number that prints half cut off is worse than none.

Decide on “of 12”. “Page 3 of 12” lets a reader notice a missing page, and has to be redone whenever the page count changes.

Keep the unnumbered original. Numbering is a one-way change to the copy you send. The plain version is the one you will want when the next round of edits arrives.

Then check the result: look at the first page, the last page and any landscape page, confirm the last number matches the page count Preview shows (minus an unnumbered cover), and click a number. If it grows selection handles, it is an annotation, not part of the page.

Questions

Why can Preview show page numbers but not add them? The numbers Preview shows are for moving around the file. Adding numbers means drawing new text into every page, and Preview’s only tools for putting text on a page are annotations, one at a time.

Can I remove page numbers I added? If they were added as annotations, yes: click each one and press Delete. The annotations list in Tools, Show Inspector shows which pages still have one. If they were exported from Pages or another word processor, they are part of the page content, and the way to remove them is to go back to the source file and export again.