Add Bates numbering to PDFs
Stamp legal-grade Bates numbers across multiple PDFs with a prefix, zero padding and continuous numbering, plus an exportable CSV range log.
- Runs in your browser
- Files are never uploaded
- Free, no account
Your production set never leaves this tab — here is how to check
This page has no upload step and no server behind it. Two ways to confirm that yourself, neither of which requires trusting us:
- Turn off Wi-Fi or put the device in aeroplane mode after this page has loaded, then run the tool. It still works.
- Open your browser’s developer tools, switch to the Network tab, clear it, and process a file. No request appears.
The reason this matters: in 2025 the PDF service pdf.net was found exposing roughly 3.5 million user-uploaded documents, and formatter sites JSONFormatter.org and CodeBeautify leaked over 80,000 saved snippets containing live cloud credentials. Those are architectural failures — a file that is never sent cannot be exposed that way.
What Bates numbering is for
In litigation, a document production can run to tens of thousands of pages spread across
hundreds of files. Bates numbering gives every one of those pages a unique, sequential,
immutable identifier — ABC000123 — so that a deposition transcript, a privilege
log and a motion can all cite the same page without ambiguity, years later, across parties
who never share a file system.
The same convention shows up outside law: patent filings, clinical trial documentation, audit evidence, insurance claims and construction submittals all use sequential page stamping for the same reason.
Choosing a format
| Element | Convention | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Prefix | Party or producing-entity abbreviation, 2–5 letters | SMITH, DEF, ACME |
| Digits | Fixed width, chosen so the highest number never overflows | 000001 — six digits, one million pages |
| Suffix | Optional confidentiality designation | -CONF, -AEO |
| Position | Bottom right is near-universal | ACME000042-CONF |
Never change the digit count mid-production. Numbers are sorted as text, so
ABC9999 and ABC10000 sort in the wrong order while
ABC009999 and ABC010000 sort correctly. Pick a width that covers
the whole matter and keep it.
Continuous numbering across files
Add every file in production order — drag the rows to reorder them — and leave continuous numbering on. File two starts at the number after file one’s last page, file three after that, and so on. The result is a single unbroken range across the whole set, which is what a production letter has to describe.
Each output file is listed with its own first and last stamp, and the CSV log records every page individually: file name, page number within that file, and the Bates number assigned. That log is the artefact you attach to a production index or load into a review platform.
The white backing box
A stamp dropped into the bottom-right corner of a dense page can land on top of a footer, a page number or a table rule and become unreadable — which defeats the point of stamping. The backing box paints an opaque white rectangle just larger than the text before the number is drawn, so it is always legible.
Turn it off when the corner is reliably blank and you would rather not obscure anything at all, or when a court’s formatting rules forbid altering the underlying image.
Real text, not a picture
Every stamp is drawn as PDF text with one of the fourteen fonts built into the format. That means the number is selectable, copyable and searchable in any reader, it stays sharp at any zoom, and it adds a few dozen bytes per page rather than an image. Review platforms that index the text layer will find the Bates numbers automatically.
Pages carrying a rotation flag are handled correctly: the stamp is rotated to match, so it appears upright in the corner the reader actually sees, not sideways in the corner the raw coordinates would suggest.
Why doing this locally matters here more than anywhere
The documents that need Bates numbering are, by definition, the documents in a legal dispute — privileged communications, medical records, financial statements, source code. Uploading them to a third-party web service to have a number printed on them is a confidentiality problem in its own right, and in some jurisdictions a disclosable one.
This page never transmits the files. The stamping is done by pdf-lib running in your browser; you can disconnect from the network first and it will still work. That is a property of the architecture, not a promise in a policy document.
Questions
What is a Bates number?
A unique, sequential identifier stamped on every page of a document production so that any page can be cited unambiguously — for example ABC000123. The convention comes from the Bates Automatic Numbering Machine and is standard in litigation discovery, patent filing and medical records.
Does numbering continue across several files?
Yes, and it is on by default. Add the files in production order, and file two picks up where file one finished, exactly as a production requires. Turn the option off if each document must restart at the same start number.
How many digits should I use?
Enough that the highest number in the production never needs an extra digit, because padding must stay constant for sorting to work. Six digits covers a million pages and is the usual default; four is common for small matters.
Is the stamp real text or an image?
Real PDF text drawn with a built-in font, so it is searchable, copyable and stays sharp at any zoom. The optional white backing box sits underneath it so the number stays legible when it lands on top of existing content.
Can opposing counsel see that this was done in a browser?
No — the output is an ordinary PDF with an ordinary text stamp. What matters here is the reverse: because the tool runs entirely on your machine, a privileged or confidential production is never transmitted to a third-party server in order to be numbered.