How to add a header or footer to every page of a PDF
Stamp a title, a date, page numbers or a 'Confidential' line across every page of a PDF. Do it in your browser with files.co, no upload needed.
You’ve finished a document and now it needs a finishing touch that runs across every page: a title in the top corner, a date, your company name, a “Confidential — do not distribute” line at the bottom. That’s a header and a footer, and adding them by hand to a 30-page PDF is the kind of job nobody should be doing manually.
The good news is you don’t have to. You can stamp the same text across every page in one pass, and you can do it without uploading the document anywhere.
Header, footer, and why you’d want one
A header sits in the strip at the top of every page. A footer sits at the bottom. They repeat, page after page, which is exactly what makes them useful for a few common jobs:
- Identity. A report that says who wrote it and when, on every page, so a printed copy doesn’t lose its context if pages get separated.
- Status. A “Draft” or “Confidential” marker that’s impossible to miss because it’s on all of them.
- Page numbers. “Page 4 of 30” so a stack of paper stays in order.
- Reference. A case number, a project code, an invoice reference that needs to be visible throughout.
The point is consistency. Every page carries the same line in the same spot, and you set it once.
Adding a header or footer in your browser
files.co has a header & footer tool that runs on your device. The flow is quick:
- Open the header & footer tool and drop your PDF in.
- Type your header and footer text. Put text in the top, the bottom, or both. You can usually place text left, center, or right, and add automatic pieces like a date or page numbers that fill themselves in.
- Check the preview. You’ll see where the text lands on the page before you commit, so you can nudge the position if it’s crowding the content.
- Apply and download. Your browser writes the text onto every page and hands you the finished file.
The original is left alone. What you download is a new copy with the header and footer baked in.
A note on “Confidential” stamps
A lot of people reach for a header or footer to mark a document confidential, and that’s a sensible use. Just know what it does and doesn’t do. A “Confidential” footer is a visible label: it tells a human reader how to treat the document. It does not encrypt anything or stop the file from being opened.
If you need the document to actually be unreadable without a password, that’s a different job. Add the label with the header & footer tool for the human signal, then run the file through the Protect PDF tool to lock it with real encryption. The two work together: one says “treat this carefully,” the other enforces it.
Why doing it in the browser is the safer choice
A document you’re stamping is usually one you care about. Reports, contracts, anything you’d bother marking “Confidential” in the first place. The irony of using a typical online stamping tool is that you’d upload that exact sensitive file to a stranger’s server just to add the word “Confidential” to it.
files.co skips the upload entirely. The tool runs in your browser using JavaScript. Your PDF is read into memory on your machine, the text is drawn onto the pages right there, and the new file saves to your downloads. The document never travels. You can confirm it: open DevTools (F12), watch the Network tab while you stamp a file, and you’ll see nothing leave. Or just switch off your connection and do it offline.
Related browser tools
Once you’re stamping pages, a few neighboring jobs tend to come up, all of them browser-only on files.co:
- Just need numbers, nothing else? Add page numbers directly.
- Want a diagonal mark across the page instead of a line at the edge? Add a watermark.
- Lock the finished file? Protect it with a password.
For the basic task, though, it’s one tool and one pass. Open the header & footer tool, type your line, preview, download. Every page stamped, nothing uploaded.