How to Add PDF Page Numbers that Don’t Match Sheet Numbers with Enfocus PitStop Pro

It’s common to want to add page numbers to a PDF file that don’t match the media or sheets. So, for example, the physical sheet 3 might have a page number of 1, sheet 4 might have a page number of 2 etc.

Enfocus PitStop Pro has a powerful Global Action for adding page numbers as we explored in a previous tutorial. However the page number sequences are always linked to the first sheet of the file. For example, you can’t easily start page number 1 on sheet 3 and ignore sheets 1 and 2.

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to add PDF page numbers that don’t match sheet numbers with PitStop Pro using Add Variable Text from the Global Change palette. By using Add Variable Text we can match our page number sequences to any range of sheets we like.

Feel free to post questions in the comments section.

Requirements: You’ll need Adobe® Acrobat Pro® with Enfocus PitStop Pro installed (you can download the latest version of PitStop here).

Scenario: Start a page numbering sequence with a ‘1’ on sheet 3

Video: Adding PDF Page Numbers that Don’t Match Sheet Numbers with Enfocus PitStop Pro

Adding PDF Page Numbers that Don’t Match Sheet Numbers with Enfocus PitStop (Step-by-Step)

Let’s assume we want to start page numbering with a ‘1’ on sheet 3 of our PDF. On sheet 4, we want to add a ‘2’, sheet 5 a ‘3’, etc. Here’s how…

Here’s how:

• Click on Tools in the Acrobat toolbar. Then click on PitStop Process then the second button, Global Changes, to open the Global Changes panel.
• In Global Changes, select: Standard>Add then double click on Add Variable Text.
• Because we are putting a ‘1’ on sheet 3, we have an offset of ‘-2’, so in the Text field enter: “%Page Number;offset=-2%”
• Under Font, Size and Color, choose what suits your document. If you want to learn about grabbing sample text directly from within your PDF, see this tutorial.
• Choose a Position that suits your text. Generally you’ll offset a little on the Y-axis to bring the page number up the page slightly.
• Set the Options. The important one to check is “Remove Existing Text that Overlaps with New Text”. This will remove any other page numbers in the same location on the document pages and will also remove the sample text you created.

Under Show Results you can choose whether to get a report for the changes we’re about to make – or not.

Now add the page numbers: Press the big green Run button!

And that’s it. Hopefully your document will now have page numbers…

Note: if you’re not happy with the results, don’t panic. Go to the Acrobat menu Edit>Enfocus Undo Execute Global Change. Selecting this will remove any page numbers that were added in the last step.

Conclusion

Enfocus PitStop Pro makes adding and modifying PDF page numbers simple and fast, and removes the need to go back to the designer to rework the PDF files. If you have a large volume of PDF files to process, consider automating page numbering with Enfocus PitStop Server.

Questions? Join the conversation in the Comments feed below or drop us a line about Training in Enfocus PitStop Pro.

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Coming up Next

In our next tutorial in this series, we’ll be showing you how to use Add Variable Text… to add page numbers to more complex PDF files such as documents with a cover require section numbering.

See all our Tutorials