Bates numbering
Stamp one unbroken sequence of numbers across a whole set of files.
Drop files here
Or paste them, or pick them from this device. Nothing is uploaded: the work happens in this tab.
Files in this tab
Nothing is loaded yet.
Options
What comes before the number: a matter code, a party name.
What comes after it, such as a confidentiality designation.
The number is padded with leading zeros to this width.
Helvetica.
Advanced
A TrueType or OpenType font to set the text in. Needed for anything the built-in typefaces cannot draw — Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese. The file is read here, in this tab, and embedded in the PDF.
Number the set
Add a file to get started.
What this does
Bates numbering stamps one unbroken sequence across a whole set of files, which is how documents are identified in litigation and in due diligence: every page in the production gets a unique number, with a prefix, a suffix and a fixed number of digits, and the count carries on from one file to the next. Every page is numbered, because an unbroken sequence is the entire point.
What it will not do
Every tool here says what it cannot do, in its own words, before you rely on it.
- Every page of every file carries a number, because an unbroken sequence is the whole point of one. To number part of a file, take those pages out of it first.
- The number is drawn on top of the page, so a page whose content already reaches the corner is written over rather than reflowed.
- Shaping and joining come from the font itself, and nothing reorders a line: text is drawn in the order it is given, so a line mixing right-to-left and left-to-right writing comes out in that order rather than in reading order.
Questions people ask
Does the numbering continue across files?
Yes — that is what makes it Bates numbering rather than page numbering. Drop the files in the order the production runs and the count carries straight on.
Can I skip a page?
No. A gap in a Bates sequence is exactly what the sequence exists to make impossible. If some pages must not be produced, take them out of the file first.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The work happens in this browser tab, on your own machine. There is no server in this product to send a file to, which is why the promise is checkable rather than something you have to take on trust: open your browser's network panel and watch it do the work without making a request.
Is there a size limit, or a limit on how many files?
None that we impose. The limit is your own machine's memory, because that is where the work happens — a few hundred megabytes is comfortable on a laptop, and less on a phone. There is no daily task counter, no queue and no account.
What does it cost, and what is the catch?
Nothing, and there is no paid tier that unlocks features: the whole product is the free one. That is affordable because running it costs us nothing — your computer does the work — so there is no per-file cost to recover, no advertising and no data to sell.