Change Page Numbers in Acrobat – Instructions

Change Page Numbers in Acrobat: Video Lesson

            This video lesson, titled “Acrobat Tutorial: Changing the Page Number Display – Adobe Acrobat Training Course,” shows you how to change page numbers in Acrobat Pro. This video is from our complete Acrobat tutorial, titled “Mastering Acrobat Made Easy.”

Instructions on How to Change Page Numbers in Acrobat:

            By default, Acrobat automatically applies Arabic numerals to pages in a PDF document, with the first page of the document as page 1. You can change the way that pages are numbered in a PDF. For example, you can omit page numbering from a title page and start page numbering from the second page in the PDF. To omit page numbering from a title page of a PDF in Acrobat, open a multi-page PDF and click the “Pages” button in the navigation pane to show the Pages panel at the right side of the screen.

            Click the cover page thumbnail in the Pages panel to select it. Then click the “Options” button in the upper-right corner of the Pages panel and choose the “Page Labels…” command from the drop-down menu. In the “Page labels” dialog box that then opens, click the “From” option button and enter “1” in both the “From” and “To” fields. This tells Acrobat to only apply the selected numbering to the first page of the PDF.

            Then ensure the “Begin new section” option button is selected in the “Numbering” section. Then choose “None” from the “Style” drop-down menu to hide the page number from the cover page. Then click the “OK” button in the dialog box to apply it. Acrobat applies your change, and the second page of the PDF then becomes page 1. Notice how the thumbnail images change to reflect your page numbering choice.

            If needed, to then change the page numbering for the rest of the PDF, click the second page’s thumbnail in the Pages panel, click the “Options” button, and then click the “Page Labels…” command again. Then enter a page range to number from page 1 to the last page of your document into the “From” and “To” fields in the “Pages” section of the dialog box. Remember, the title page no longer has a page number, so page 1 is now the PDF’s second page.

            Then click the “Begin new section” option and choose a numbering style from the “Style” drop-down menu. Optionally, to add prefix characters to the page numbering in Acrobat, type them into the “Prefix” field. To choose with which number to begin page numbering for the selected pages, if desired, type the starting page number into the “Start” field. To finish, click the “OK” button. Acrobat then applies your choices and changes the page numbers in the PDF.