PDF Header and Footer
Stamp a running head and foot onto every page, with page numbers and a date.
The PDF header and footer tool opens and stamps your document on your device. Board papers and case files are never uploaded.
Add a watermark as well
About PDF Header and Footer
A document that will be printed, filed or circulated needs to say what it is on every page. Which report is this? Which page am I holding? When was it produced? A running head and foot answer all three, and they are exactly what a PDF exported from another application usually lacks. This tool stamps both onto an existing document without re-rendering it — the pages keep their text, fonts and artwork, and gain a line at the top and bottom. A small set of tokens fills in the page number, the total, the document's own title, the file name and today's date, and a cover page can be left clean.
Features
- Independent header and footer text, each aligned left, centre or right
- Tokens for page number, total pages, title, file name and date
- Live preview of what the first stamped page will say
- Skip the first page so a cover stays clean
- Start numbering at any value, for documents that continue from another
- Text size and distance from the page edge both adjustable
- Stamps onto the existing pages — text and fonts are untouched
How to use the PDF Header and Footer
- Drop the PDF onto the page
- Write the header and footer, using tokens where values should change
- Set the alignment, text size and distance from the edge
- Choose whether to skip the cover, then stamp and download
Example
Input
Header: {title} Footer: Page {page} of {pages}
Output
Q3 review Page 4 of 18
The title token reads the document's own stored title, falling back to the file name.
Common errors & troubleshooting
- The stamp overlaps existing content. — The document has no margin left for a running head. Increase the distance from the edge, or add margins first by resizing the pages.
- A token printed literally as {page}. — Only page, pages, title, filename and date are recognised. Anything else is left alone deliberately, so braces in your own text survive.
- Page numbers are one higher than expected. — Skipping the cover shifts the count so the first stamped page is page one. Turn the skip off, or lower the start number, depending on which convention you want.
- The stamp is missing from some pages. — Check the skip-first setting and the start value. Every other page is stamped, so a gap in the middle usually means the document was already a merge of stamped and unstamped files.
Frequently asked questions
- Does stamping a header re-render the whole PDF?
- No. The text is drawn onto the existing pages, so everything already there — selectable text, embedded fonts, vector artwork — is left exactly as it was.
- Can the header be different on odd and even pages?
- Not here; one header and one footer apply throughout. For mirrored spreads, stamp the odd and even pages separately and interleave the results.
- Which date does the {date} token use?
- Today's date on your device, in ISO form. It is fixed at the moment you stamp, so the document does not change later.
- Is my document uploaded to be stamped?
- No. The PDF is opened, drawn on and saved in this tab, so board papers and case files stay on your machine.
- Can I add an image or a logo to the header?
- This tool stamps text. For a logo, add a watermark image, or build the document with the logo already in place.
Related tools
- Add Page Numbers — Stamp page numbers onto a PDF (position, format, start).
- Watermark PDF — Add a diagonal text watermark to every page.
- Merge PDFs — Combine multiple PDFs into one, with reordering.
- Resize PDF — Rescale every PDF page to A4, Letter or another standard size, content centred.
- Flatten PDF — Lock filled form fields into the page so a PDF looks the same everywhere.
- Crop PDF — Trim margins from every page via the crop box.
- Text to PDF — Turn typed or pasted text into a paginated, downloadable PDF.
All ArrayKit tools