Add header and footer to PDF
Stamp text like dates, filenames, or your company name at the top or bottom of every page.
How to add a header or footer to a PDF online for free
- 1
Open the PDF you want to stamp
Click Select PDF file and pick your document. The first page renders as a live preview so you can watch each header and footer slot fill in as you type — navigate to any page with the ← → buttons above the preview to confirm placement across the file.
- 2
Type into the six slots and drop in tokens
The sidebar shows two panels — Header and Footer — each with a Left, Center and Right text input. Type any static text, then tap the {page}, {total}, {date} or {filename} chip under the row to insert that token at the cursor position of the last-focused slot. You can mix freely: "Confidential — {filename}" in the header-left, "Page {page} of {total}" in the footer-right.
- 3
Set the look and choose which pages get stamped
Pick a Font size (6–72pt, default 10), a Color from the swatch picker, and a Margin from edge — Small (18pt), Normal (28pt) or Big (44pt). Under Pages, choose All pages or Page range and type something like 2-10 or 1,3,5-9 to skip a cover page or target a specific section.
- 4
Click Add Header & Footer and download
The tool writes each slot's text — with tokens resolved for the actual page — as a Helvetica text layer on every included page, respecting page rotation so headers stay on top even for sideways scans. The output downloads as your-file-stamped.pdf; the original PDF isn't overwritten.
Smart tokens: dates, filenames and page numbers that fill themselves
The chips beneath each row of inputs — {page}, {total}, {date} and {filename} — are the reason this tool is faster than doing headers by hand in a word processor. Tap one and the token is inserted at the end of whichever slot you last focused; when the PDF saves, each token is replaced with the real value for that page.
Type Page {page} of {total} in Footer-Center and every page auto-numbers itself with the true totals; drop {date} in a header slot and today's date (DD/MM/YYYY) stamps across the file at save time; put {filename} in a corner and every page carries the document's name minus the .pdf extension. Combining is free-form, so a footer of "Confidential — {filename} — Page {page} of {total}" is one line of typing that produces a fully-referenced, per-page stamp on a 200-page document.
Label every page like a professional document
A report without a header, a bundle without a footer, or a printed handout without a date all share the same problem — the pages don't know what they are. Any page that gets photographed, forwarded, stapled, unstapled or dropped becomes an orphan without a way back to its source.
A quiet title along the top and a small "Page X of Y" along the bottom fixes that in one pass. It makes the document referenceable in meetings ("see page 14 of the RFP"), hard to misfile after printing, and instantly identifiable when a single page is forwarded on. That's the entire brief of this tool: give a plain PDF the metadata a professional reader expects to see on the page itself.
Six placement slots
Two rows of three inputs — Header-Left, Header-Center, Header-Right, Footer-Left, Footer-Center, Footer-Right — cover every corner-and-centre placement a professional document tends to use. Each slot is independent, so you can stamp only the ones you need and leave the rest empty.
Your text plus smart tokens
Any slot accepts free-form text mixed with the four smart tokens: {page}, {total}, {date} and {filename}. Type "Draft — {date}" or "{filename} · Page {page} of {total}" and the tool resolves each token per page when it saves the PDF — no placeholders left behind.
Consistent on every page
One setup applies to every page in the file — or every page in the range you specified. The Margin from edge control keeps all six slots a uniform Small (18pt), Normal (28pt) or Big (44pt) distance from the paper edge, so the document reads as one cohesive piece rather than a patchwork.
No quality loss
Text is added as a lightweight Helvetica text layer sitting in the page margins; nothing about the underlying pages is re-rendered, re-compressed, or converted to images. Scans stay as scans, vector diagrams stay as vector, and the file grows only by the bytes the added text itself needs.
When do you need headers and footers on a PDF?
Official and legal submissions
Court bundles, tender responses and government filings routinely require the document title and filing date on every page so nothing goes missing. Type the case name in header-center and "{date}" in footer-right and the whole file is compliant in one pass.
Company reports and client proposals
A quarterly report or a client deck reads far more polished when the company or document name sits quietly at the top of every page and page numbers sit at the bottom. Combine "Acme Q3 Report" in the header-center with "Page {page} of {total}" in the footer-center and the document immediately looks accountably produced.
Class notes, handouts and printed course packs
Handouts get printed, stapled loosely, and shuffled between students. Labelling every page with the module title and date turns a stack that would otherwise be indistinguishable into a self-identifying resource that finds its way back to its owner.
Version-tracking drafts before final review
Drafts circulate faster than they get renamed and reviewers frequently end up commenting on last week's version. Stamping "Draft — {date}" in the header-right on every page makes the vintage of the file visible at a glance without having to open its properties.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add a header or footer to a PDF for free?+
Open this page, click Select PDF file and pick the document. Type into any of the six slots in the sidebar — Header-Left, Header-Center, Header-Right, Footer-Left, Footer-Center, Footer-Right — and drop {page}, {total}, {date} or {filename} tokens in via the chips beneath each row. Set font size, colour, margin and page range, then hit Add Header & Footer. A stamped copy downloads to your device with a -stamped suffix on the filename.
Can I add page numbers in the footer?+
Yes — the classic recipe is to type "Page {page} of {total}" into Footer-Center (or any footer slot you prefer). The tool substitutes the actual page number and total on each page when it saves the file. If page numbering is the only thing you want and you'd rather use a dedicated control for six preset positions, the Page Numbers tool is the more focused option.
Can I add today's date automatically?+
Yes. Drop the {date} token into any slot and it resolves to today's date in DD/MM/YYYY format at the moment you click Add Header & Footer — every stamped page carries the same date. If you want a fixed literal date instead (say a report cover date that shouldn't drift), just type the date as plain text and skip the token.
Can I put different text on the left, center and right?+
Yes — that's exactly what the six-slot layout is for. Header and Footer each expose three independent inputs labelled Left, Center and Right, so you can put a document title in Header-Center, a version marker in Header-Right, and page numbers in Footer-Center all at the same time. Any slot you leave empty is simply not stamped.
Can I add the filename to every page?+
Yes. Put the {filename} token in any slot and it resolves to the source file's name without the .pdf extension on every stamped page. This is useful for course packs, legal bundles or any workflow where a page might get separated from the file it came from.
Do my files get uploaded to a server?+
No. The PDF is opened, previewed and re-saved with the added headers and footers entirely inside your browser tab, using standard Web APIs — nothing is sent to us or to any third party during the process. You can even disconnect from the internet after the page has loaded and the stamping will still complete.
Can I style the header/footer text?+
Yes, but the controls are intentionally simple: pick a font size from 6 to 72 points (default 10) and a colour from the sidebar colour picker (default is a soft grey #666666). The typeface itself is fixed to the standard Helvetica included in every PDF viewer — no bold, italic or custom font selection today. This keeps output consistent across every device that opens the file.
Will it overlap my page content?+
The stamps sit in the page margin at the distance you pick — Small is 18 points from the edge, Normal is 28, Big is 44 — so on typical documents they land in the whitespace above and below the body text. Content that reaches the very edge of the page (edge-to-edge scans, artwork, tightly typeset pages) can overlap, which is why the live preview shows the exact placement on any page you navigate to before you save. Switch to Big margin or move the text to a less crowded slot if the preview shows a clash.
Can I apply a header to only some pages?+
Yes. Under Pages in the sidebar, switch from All pages to Page range and type the pages you want stamped — the field accepts single numbers and ranges separated by commas, so 2-10 stamps pages 2 through 10, 1,3,5-9 stamps page 1, page 3 and pages 5 through 9, and 2-100 lets you skip a cover page. Pages outside the range keep their original appearance untouched.
Do I need Adobe Acrobat?+
No. Acrobat's header-and-footer feature lives behind its paid tier; this tool does the same work in the browser with no download, no subscription and no watermark on the output. The stamped PDF opens correctly in Acrobat Reader, Preview, Chrome, Edge, Foxit or any other PDF viewer.