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How to Add Serial Numbers to PDF Documents

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Published By Ashwani Tiwari
Aswin Vijayan
Approved By Aswin Vijayan
Published On January 25th, 2024
Reading Time 4 Minutes Reading
Category PDF Updates
A unique feature knowns as “Bates Numbering” used to add serial numbers to PDF format. This feature helps the various organization to manage and indexing the pages in PDF format. This Sequencing of Document pages used for information/ PDF file retrieval and identification easily.

With these sequencing features, we apply a unique number to one document or all the pages of the document. Not only we add a number with Adobe Tool, but we can also add Suffix and Prefix to add other meta-details to find document pages easily

How to Add Serial Numbers to PDF file?

In the below section, we discussed all the features in Acrobat Document File used in “Bates Numbering” steps-wise so that according to scenarios, we can use the option included in Acrobat DC.

1. Open Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud Application and add the desired PDF File. Use the “Organize Page” option to add serial numbers to the PDF

Select Organize PDF option

2. Open “More option” to open “Bates Numbering” and select “Add Option”.

Bates numbering option

3. Now you can see all the option offered by Adobe Acrobat DC for adding serial Number to pages as shown below

Options to Add Serial Numbers in PDF

Numbering Feature to Add Serial Numbers to PDF

In this feature, the following options are available:

  • Number of Digits: Length of Number of Digits
  • Start Number: Starting Serial Number
  • Prefix: ADD Text or Number Before Serial Number
  • Suffix: ADD Text or Number After Serial Number

Fill all the above fields to display the serial number with some added text on the document pages

Add Bates Number

Display Option

With this option, you can change the Position of the Serial Number within the PDF File. Different options such as:
“Left Header Text”, “Center Header Text”, “Right Header Text” to add Serial Number in Left, Right, and Center Position of the Desired Pages.

Serial Number Display option

Insert Date with Serial Number

Yes, you can also add the “Date” Section with Sequence Number, You can use the Date Convention Option to also change the “Date Format”

Insert Date option

Different Naming Convention Features are available to insert date format with the serial number added. Select the format according to your requirement.

Set Date Format

While adding serial numbers to PDF File format, other options such as Page Number Format and Start Page Number available so that Bates numbering formats applies easily to find while searching pages.

Additional Features in Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud

After adding serial numbers to PDF using Bates Numbering features of Adobe DC, you can Save Space to using the appearance Options offers options such as “Shrink Document to avoid overwriting text and graphics” and “constant positions while printing

Appearance option

Different Documentation required different file formats and fonts setting according to work and also Page layout also important during documentation so we can use “Margin Setting” to change it.

Header footer options

Not only the Bates numbering features but also various options are available for the user while working with PDF File format within Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud such in the below image

Adobe Acrobat DC options

In the above sections, we use Adobe Acrobat DC Software to add a serial number in PDF and other features.

But there are some cases when the above method fails:

Case 1: Adobe Acrobat DC is not available

It might be possible that the user is not having Acrobat Pro DC to add serial numbers to PDF files. Moreover, the cost of purchasing this Acrobat program is quite high. Therefore, in such situations, it is necessary to use alternative methods like PDF Bates Numberer.

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This software allows a user to add page numbers to an Adobe PDF without Acrobat installation. Moreover, the tool provides the facility to add serial numbers to PDF files in batches. Option to insert date, additional text, prefix, or suffix is also provided.

Know the steps to add page numbers in PDF

Case 2: PDF File is Secured With Password & Restrictions

If the user is having a restricted PDF document then he/she can’t use the Adobe Acrobat Pro application to add the serial number in the PDF document. But, if the user knows the permission password then firstly they required to remove PDF restrictions & then add bates.

But what if the permission password is not known to the user?
In such situations, it is advised to use a third-party tool which we have mentioned in Case 1. With this Bates Numberer tool, we can easily add serial numbers to secured PDF documents.

Conclusion

Bates numbering on PDF files plays an important role in various sectors. Basically, inserting a serial number in a PDF file helps in document indexing, searching, & quick data retrieval. This technique is used in the Legal, Finance, and Banking sectors. In the above article, we had a discussion over some simple techniques that can help the user to add serial numbers to a PDF file.