Bates numbering on your computer

Stamp a prefix plus a sequential number on every page, legal style, with position and digits under your control. Free includes one PDF per day; the 7-Day Pass and Pro are unlimited.

100% private: everything runs on your computer, your files never leave your device.

  1. Upload your PDF - it opens locally on your computer
  2. Set prefix, starting number, digits and position
  3. Download the numbered PDF

What Bates numbering does

Bates numbering stamps a unique identifier on every page of a document, on your own computer. Each stamp is a prefix you choose followed by a sequential number padded with leading zeros, so a set reads ABC000001, ABC000002 and onwards, and any page in it can be named without ambiguity.

It is the numbering convention used in litigation, discovery, audits and due diligence, where thousands of pages from different sources have to be referred to page by page and the reference has to stay valid after the pages have been copied, printed and passed around.

The stamp is drawn into the page as real text in an embedded font, nine points, twenty-eight points in from the edge. It prints, it can be selected and searched, and it survives being merged, split or converted, because it is page content rather than an annotation sitting on top.

How to apply Bates numbering

  1. Add the PDF. It opens locally and the numbering screen appears.
  2. Set the prefix, the starting number, how many digits to pad to, and which corner the stamp goes in.
  3. Check the preview, which shows the first and last label the document will carry.
  4. Press Number pages and download the result. It carries the suffix _bates.

What you control

A Bates set is only useful if it is consistent, so everything that decides how a label reads is in your hands, and nothing else moves.

Privacy: the numbering happens in your browser

The document is read, stamped and written back inside your browser tab. It is never uploaded, no page is sent anywhere to be processed, and no third-party script is loaded.

The documents that get Bates numbered are usually the ones under the strictest confidentiality of anyone's working life: evidence, discovery bundles, audit files, deal rooms. None of it reaches a server.

Typical uses

Frequently asked questions

What does Bates numbering cost?

The free plan includes one numbered PDF per day. The 7-Day Pass and Pro remove the daily limit and allow numbering several documents in a single run.

Can the sequence continue across several documents?

Yes. In a batch you choose whether the numbering runs continuously through every file or restarts at each one, which is the difference between a single production and a set of independent documents.

Will the stamps print?

Yes. They are drawn into the page as text, not added as annotations, so they print, they can be selected and searched, and they survive merging, splitting and conversion.

What happens on rotated pages?

The stamp lands in the corner you see, the right way up. Each page's rotation is read and the text placed accordingly.

Can I choose the font or the size?

No. The stamp is nine points at a fixed margin, which is the size that stays legible without colliding with the content of a normal page. What you control is the prefix, the number, the padding and the corner.

Is my document uploaded?

No. Everything runs on your computer inside the browser tab, and the PDF never reaches a server.

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