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PDF Header & Footer

Add headers and footers to a PDF. Six independent slots (header L/C/R + footer L/C/R), text or image, opacity, page range. All in your browser.

Interactive tool

Drop a PDF to add headers / footers

Six slots, text or image, fully client-side.

What is the PDF Header & Footer tool?

A six-slot header and footer stamper for PDFs. Each corner of the page gets its own configurable slot: left, centre, right at both the top (header) and bottom (footer). Each slot can hold text or an image (e.g. a logo). Add page-number placeholders, tweak opacity, font, color and margin, and apply to any page range. The whole pipeline runs in your browser.

How to Stamp Headers and Footers

  1. 1Drop a PDF into the upload area
  2. 2Pick text or image for any of the six slots (header L/C/R + footer L/C/R)
  3. 3Use {n} and {total} placeholders for live page numbers (e.g. "{n} of {total}")
  4. 4Adjust font, size, color, opacity, and margin on the right
  5. 5Optionally restrict to a page range like "2-last" to skip the cover page
  6. 6Click Apply and download the stamped PDF
What you get

Key features

Six independent slots

Header and footer × left, centre, right: same primitives most desktop publishers ship

Text or image per slot

Drop a logo into the header-left and a copyright into the footer-centre in one pass

Page-number placeholders

{n} and {total} expand to the current and total page numbers at render time

Per-page-range stamping

Skip the cover or appendix with a range string like "2-last"

Opacity control

From 10% to 100%: useful for understated branding watermarks

Live page-1 preview

Position simulation updates as you type so you can iterate quickly

PNG and JPEG support

Embedded with pdf-lib via embedPng / embedJpg: no transparency loss

100% client-side

No upload. Logos, signatures, and the underlying PDF stay on your device

Why a local header/footer tool?

Adding a corporate header or a confidentiality footer is the kind of task most teams do dozens of times a week. Server-side competitors typically upload the file and your branding image, and many of them retain copies for analytics. This tool stays in the browser, embeds your assets directly into the output PDF, and never sees the content. Because pdf-lib is metadata-aware, the existing page contents pass through untouched.

Common use cases

  • Adding a company logo to every page of a proposal
  • Stamping a "CONFIDENTIAL" footer on a report before distribution
  • Inserting a dynamic "Page n of total" footer across a long document
  • Branding internal training PDFs with a small wordmark in the corner
  • Adding a date or version footer to release notes
  • Marking up exported invoices with a clinic / firm address

Placeholder cheat sheet

  • {n}: current page number
  • {total}: total page count
  • {N}, {TOTAL}: same as above (case-insensitive)

Slot tips

  • Header-centre + footer-centre is the classic "title at top, page number at bottom" layout
  • Header-left for a logo, footer-right for a contact URL is the corporate report standard
  • Drop opacity to ~0.5 for subtle branding behind body text

Limitations

  • Password-protected PDFs are not supported; remove the password first
  • Standard fonts (Helvetica, Times, Courier) cover Latin scripts only
  • Each slot writes a single text run or single image: multi-line text not yet supported
  • Digital signatures are invalidated by any page modification
Pro tips

Tips & best practices

Use the same font as your body

Pick Times if your document is set in a serif; Helvetica for sans-serif body copy.

Margins should match your existing layout

36pt is half an inch and works for most reports. Increase to 54pt+ for documents with generous margins.

Use Cmd+↵ to apply

Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows) triggers Apply without leaving the keyboard.

Combine with Add Page Numbers

For very different formats per section, use this tool for the static branding and the dedicated page-numbering tool for arithmetic.

Lower opacity for understated logos

A 0.4-opacity logo in the header is enough to brand the document without distracting from the content.

Built for trust

Privacy & security

Files, logos, and slot text never leave your browser. pdf-lib does the writing, pdfjs-dist handles the live preview: both run client-side.

Related tools

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I add a logo image and page numbers in one pass?

Yes. Each of the six slots is independent: set header-left to your logo image and footer-centre to "Page {n} of {total}", and the tool handles both in a single save.

What image formats are supported?

PNG and JPEG. PNG with transparency is preserved. JPEG is recommended when the image is a photograph or has no transparency, since the file is smaller.

How do I skip the cover page?

Type "2-last" in the page-range field. The tool will only stamp pages 2 through the end. Combine with custom start numbers in the dedicated page-numbering tool if needed.

Will it overwrite existing headers?

No. The new content draws on top of the page. If your source already contains a header, the new one stacks on top of it. Redact the original first if you want to replace.

Are images embedded or linked?

Embedded. pdf-lib serializes the image bytes directly into the output PDF, so the file is self-contained and renders identically in any viewer.

Is the file uploaded?

No. The PDF, your logo, and the slot text never leave the browser. pdf-lib runs locally; pdfjs-dist generates the preview.