Let's say you have a PDF of hundreds of pages and you need to print out some of the pages, how much effort it will take to locate the right pages and arrange them in order. Adding page numbers to PDF is a game changer that makes managing pages easier and more efficient.
A question arises for Mac users: how to add page numbers to PDF?
Adobe Acrobat is always recommended to handle PDF files, but its high price has put most of users off.
In fact, there are multiple solutions to add page numbers to PDF on mac without Adobe Acrobat. Surely, Mac Preview is one of them, also we have extra 2 options on this topic.
In the current era of information explosion, efficiency is often an important topic of our concern, and this topic also applies to the task of adding page numbers to PDF.
Thankfully, a PDF toolkit containing all necessary and basic features is designed to boost users’ work efficiency, named Cisdem PDFMaster.
Cisdem PDFMaster uses a simple but visually pleasing interface, enabling users to process multiple PDF tasks under different tabs but in one place. The main tabs contain Tools, Page Edit, Editor, Converter, Form, Fill & Sign, Edit PDF, Digital Sign, Redact, OCR and Page Display. Under the Editor tab, you can benefit a lot from various tools it provides, including adding header & footer.
You can automatically add page numbers to PDF starting from any specific number, and customize the page range you want to add page numbers. The page number can be placed in 6 locations, and the margin between it and the page can be tailored at your will. Moreover, it is capable of adding page numbers to a large batch of PDF files at one time.
Free Download macOS 11 or later 
You can refer to this video tutorial for a better understanding:
Mac Preview is the free tool to manage PDFs and images on Mac. Although there is no such an exclusive toolbar built in Preview to add pages numbers directly, we can add by inputting numbers in blank text boxes, quite similar to the way of adding text to PDF in Preview.
Cons: You need to manually add page number on each page.
You can also add PDF page numbers on Mac with online PDF tools. Sejda and iLovePDF both are good choices to easily add page numbers online free. But Sejda comes with less powerful performance and more file limitations, so here we use iLovePDF to number PDF pages on Mac.
Cons: Batch processing is not allowed. And it may pose a risk of information leakage due to online services.
Adobe Acrobat is a leading PDF editor that combines a wealth of tools to deal with PDF documents. Despite the expensive price, some users are still willing to pay for its robust features. Since the software is built in a complex interface, so a long learning curve is required for novices. If you are one of them, refer to the illustrated guide below to add page numbers to PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Adobe is powerful, but it is not the only tool to solve PDF-related issues. For users who work with PDFs occasionally, Preview and online free PDF tool can work best for you. But if you work on PDFs very often, you'd better turn to dedicated PDF editors like Cisdem PDFMaster, which allows editing PDF, converting PDF, OCR PDF, locking and unlocking PDF, manipulating PDF, compressing PDF in one place.
Free Download macOS 11 or later
Earlier than macOS 11, click here
Bianca is a senior tech editor and strategist at Cisdem with Over 10 years of experience on PDF related solutions which covers all document editing, annotating, converting and managing etc.
