Page numbering looks like the simplest job in this whole set, and it has exactly one trap in it. If your document has a cover, and you number every page from 1, then the cover is page 1 and the first real page is 2 — but the reader looking at the first real page sees “2” printed on something they think of as the beginning. Number from the second page instead and start at 1, and now every number in the document is one less than the page it sits on. Either way something disagrees with something else.
The answer is to skip the cover and choose where the count begins: the cover carries no number, and the number printed on a page matches the page you count it as. This tool does that arithmetic for you — the number to start at and how many first pages to skip are both yours to set — and it states how many pages will be numbered before you commit to anything.
The five formats cover what documents actually use. Just the number for anything short. Number and total — “3 / 12” — for anything that might be printed and separated, which is most contracts. Page and total — “Page 3 of 12” — for reports and submissions. Roman numerals, in lower or upper case, for front matter. Each is shown as the text it produces rather than described, because “page and total” is a phrase and “Page 3 of 12” is the thing you are actually choosing between.
Placement is six positions — the top or the bottom of the page, at the left, the centre or the right — because a footer number and a header number are both ordinary, and the corner you want depends on what else is already on the page.
Two jobs need more than one style. Mixed ranges number the front matter i, ii, iii and the body 1, 2, 3 — up to four ranges, each with its own pages, style and starting number. Bates stamps every page with a prefix, a zero-padded counter and an optional suffix — ABC-000123, ABC-000124 — continuous across the document, with the first and last labels shown before you commit. Applied to all open files at once, one sequence carries across the batch — the next file picks up where the last file ended.
And because the numbering is a setting on the open document rather than a one-way rewrite, you can change the format, move it, take it off, or start again from the file you opened — without re-uploading anything. Free, no signup, and no cap on pages.