You need the same line of text on every page of a PDF. A document title at the top, "Confidential" in a corner, a date, "Page 3 of 12" at the bottom. If you have the Word file, add it there and export again. If all you have is the PDF, Header & footer stamps the text straight onto each page.
It runs in your browser, so the file isn't uploaded, and it has six boxes: left, center and right for the header, and the same three for the footer.
A PDF doesn't have a header area
In Word, the header is a separate zone of the page. Text there repeats automatically and the body text flows around it. A PDF has nothing like that. Each page is a fixed set of drawing instructions (put this text here, this line there), and the headers you see in most PDFs are just ordinary text that happens to sit near the top.
So adding a header to a PDF means adding one more instruction to each page: draw this text, in this font, at this spot. Three things follow from that.
- The new text is real text in an embedded font. It prints sharply, and you can search for it and copy it.
- The tool can't see what's already on the page. If the original has a header of its own, yours will be drawn over it unless you make room (more on that below).
- Placeholders like the page number are filled in once, when you click the button. {date} becomes today's date at that moment and stays that way. It doesn't update the next time someone opens the file.
Adding a header and footer step by step
- Open Header & footer and add your PDF.
- Type into any of the "Left", "Center" and "Right" boxes under "Header" and "Footer". Leave the ones you don't need empty.
- Set the "Font", "Size", "Bold" and "Color" in the settings bar. The defaults are Times New Roman at 10 pt in dark gray.
- Check the "Preview of page 1" to see where the text lands.
- Click "Add header and footer" and download the file, saved as headerfooter-yourfile.pdf.
If you want a ready-made format, pick a "Style" and a "Location" and click "Insert". The styles include "Page 2 of 45", "2 / 45", "Page I, Page II", "File name on each page" and "Text label on each page". Insert replaces whatever is already in the box you picked, so insert first and type your own text afterwards.
Placeholders, and what {total} really means
Any box can mix normal text with four placeholders:
- {page} is the page number.
- {total} is the number the last page of the document gets.
- {date} is today's date, written as YYYY-MM-DD.
- {filename} is the file name without the .pdf ending.
So a footer like "{filename}, {date}" on the left and "Page {page} of {total}" on the right is fine. The "Numbers" menu changes how {page} and {total} are written: "1, 2, 3", "i, ii, iii", "I, II, III" or "A, B, C".
{total} is worth a second look. It isn't always the number of pages in the file. It's the number the last page of the document would get under the same count, which depends on the two settings under "More options". If you skip the cover page and start at 1, a 20-page file ends with "Page 19 of 19", which is what a reader expects. Pages you leave out later in the file still count, so with "odd" on a 10-page file, page 9 reads "Page 9 of 10".
Each box holds one line, so you can't stack two lines in the same corner.
Skipping the cover and continuing the numbering
Under "More options" there are three settings:
- "Apply only to pages" takes ranges such as "2-last", "3-10", "odd" or "even". Leave it empty to stamp every page.
- "Start numbering from" is the number {page} shows on the first stamped page.
- "Distance from edge (pt)" is how far the text sits from the edge of the page, 24 points by default. There are 72 points in an inch, so that's a bit under a centimetre.
{page} follows each page's position in the file, counted from the first stamped page. Pages you leave out still count, they just don't get any text. With "odd", page 3 of the file shows 3 and page 5 shows 5, and with "1-5, 8-last" page 8 still shows 8, so the printed numbers match the ones your PDF reader shows. Only the pages before the first stamped page are left out of the count, which is why "2-last" starting at 1 puts 1 on page 2.
Keeping the header off existing text
Plenty of PDFs leave a clear margin, so a header 24 points from the edge sits in empty space. Some don't. Slides exported to PDF, scans and documents with their own headers often have content right up to the edge.
Set "Document margins" to "Increase margins" for those. It shrinks the page content slightly and centres it, freeing a band at the top and bottom for your text. The page size stays the same, links and comments move with the content, and the preview shows the effect. Each band is the distance from the edge plus about one and a half lines of text, so with the defaults and both a header and a footer, a Letter page's content ends up around 90% of its original size.
The six boxes don't know about each other. Long text in the left box and long text in the center box can run into each other, and the tool won't warn you. Text that's wider than the whole page is shrunk to fit, but that's the only adjustment it makes. Keep the side boxes short and the preview will show you if they collide.
When to use a different tool
If all you want is a page number, Page numbers has one text position and is slightly quicker to set up. The guide on adding page numbers to a PDF goes through it.
For legal productions, use Bates numbering, which stamps fixed-width numbers like ABC000001 and can number across several files in one go (see the Bates numbering guide).
For a big diagonal "DRAFT" across the middle of the page, Watermark is the right tool. Headers and footers are meant to stay out of the way.
Do it last, and keep the original
The header becomes part of each page, so it doesn't adjust when pages move. Merge, reorder and delete pages first, then add the header and footer. Do it the other way round and you'll have "Page 7 of 12" sitting between pages 3 and 4.
The tool can't remove a header it added earlier, and running it a second time adds a second layer of text on top of the first. So keep the unstamped original. If you spot a typo, start again from that copy.
Characters the chosen font can't draw come out as question marks. If your header uses accented letters, symbols or a non-Latin script, check the preview carefully before downloading, and try another font if anything looks off.
Also useful: Page numbers · Bates numbering
