Add a header and footer to every page of a PDF

Header, footer, page number or watermark?

4 kinds of mark go on every page. Pick by what it is for:

Headers, footers and numbers come from the same tool, so you can add all 3 in 1 pass.

Step by step: a header and footer on the lease

Say Jana Čermák wants every page of lease.pdf (4 pages, page 1 a cover) to carry the reference at the top and the file name with the date at the bottom, plus page numbers.

1. Drop lease.pdf on the tool above.
2. Where: Bottom right. Format: Page 1 of 12.
3. Cover page: turn it on, so page 1 stays clean.
4. Header: Lease agreement, ref. 2026-114
5. Footer: {file}, printed {date}
6. Click Add numbers and download lease-numbered.pdf.

We ran exactly this. Pages 2 to 4 each got “Lease agreement, ref. 2026-114” at the top, “lease.pdf, printed 2026-10-11” at the bottom, and “Page 1 of 3” to “Page 3 of 3” in the corner; page 1 got nothing. The result line read “Added page numbers, a header, a footer to 3 pages, as real text” and “Left the first page as it was”. The 4-page file grew by 1.3 KB.

Notice 2 things in that result. The total counts only the numbered pages, so a skipped cover makes it “of 3”. And {file} is the name with .pdf; if you would rather not show it, type the title yourself.

What can go in the header and footer?

Any text you type, plus 4 placeholders that are filled in page by page:

So Case 4711, page {page} of {pages} in the header numbers the pages there instead of in a corner; set Where to No numbers so they do not appear twice. If you want the date written out (“10 October 2026”), type it instead of using {date}.

Size and margin set the text size (5 to 48 pt, 10 by default) and the distance from the page edge (10 mm by default) for the numbers, header and footer alike.

Headers, footers and numbers without collisions

The header always sits at the top centre and the footer at the bottom centre. When the numbers share an edge with them, the tool makes room: numbers at the bottom push the footer up a line, numbers at the top push the header down a line. Pages that are turned (a landscape table in a portrait report) get their header at the top as you see the page, reading left to right.

There are no left and right slots for the header or footer. If you need “Confidential” top left and a reference top right, put 1 of them in the header and add the other as a text box in the editor on each page, or put both in 1 header line.

Only some pages: the cover, an appendix, the last page

Cover page is the only exception the tool has: it leaves page 1 without a number, header or footer. For anything else, split the file, stamp the part you want, and put it back together:

1. Cut the file with Split PDF, Ranges, for example 1-20, 21- for a 20-page body and an appendix.
2. Run the appendix through Page numbers with its own header, say Appendix A.
3. Combine both parts again in Merge PDF, with Bookmark per file off.

A different footer on the last page is the same pattern with ranges such as 1-11, 12. The document’s bookmarks survive the round trip: each part keeps those to its own pages, and Merge with Bookmark per file off puts them back at the top level. What does not survive is a link that crosses the cut, such as a contents line in the body pointing into the appendix, and the title in the file’s properties, which Split and Merge do not set.

The honest part

It stamps; it does not replace. The header is drawn on top of the page. If the page already has a header in that spot, the new one lands over the old one, and there is no detect-and-replace. To change an existing header, edit it in place: Edit a PDF header or footer walks through that, and Edit a PDF covers the editor. If the margin is tight, raise the margin or pick another edge before you stamp, and check page 2 of the result.

Western European letters only. The text is drawn in Helvetica, 1 of the standard PDF fonts, so nothing is embedded and the file barely grows. That font has no ł, ř or Cyrillic; the tool says so and refuses rather than printing gaps. Add such text with Add text in the editor, which embeds a font that has the letters.

A header is not a lock. Anyone with an editor can remove a stamped line, as with any watermark. If the mark must not be removed, add it and then protect the file with Protect PDF, which can stop editing in viewers that respect it.