Bates Stamp PDFs on a Mac

I’ve been in search of a freeware method for adding bates numbers to PDF files on the Mac.  Well, there’s no such thing, as of this writing.  I’ve searched high and low to find a free method for bates stamping PDF documents on a Mac, and, quite frankly, I’ve struck out.

Fortunately, I run Windows XP via VM Ware Fusion and I found what I believe to be the only freeware solution out there for bates stamping PDF documents: Windows or Mac. (For those of you who aren’t lawyers or otherwise don’t know what bates stamping is, it basically means page numbering.)

That freeware solution is A-PDF Number from A-PDF: Affordable PDF Tools. You can download it free from the link provided.

As I have disclaimed in my About page, I use Windows when I have to – and sometimes I have to.  Technically, I don’t have to, but why pay for something when you can do it for free.  Call me cheap, but I refuse to pay $400-$500 for Adobe Professional when the only thing I need it for is putting page numbers on PDFs.  Certainly, there are Mac programs that will allow you to do this simple task, but, in my opinion, they are vastly over-priced. Here is a breakdown of the programs I’ve found for the Mac that will do the job.

PDF Studio: ($60) – PDF Studio’s website claims that you can add “page numbers and more,” but I couldn’t find out how.  Certainly you can manually do that, but I’m in search of an automated solution. This is especially important when you have hundreds or thousands of documents to control.

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro ($449) – I’m told Acrobat 8 Pro has a very usable page numbering feature. I assume the new Acrobat 9 Pro has at least the same functionality. I have not tried it out. Personally, I hate Adobe’s Reader.  It’s bloated and slow and doesn’t really give me any useful functionality.  I can only imagine that Adobe’s professional PDF machine is more bloated.  Plus, $450 is too much to pay for the only thing I need from it: page numbering (although, although the OCR that comes with Acrobat could come in handy, too… more on that in a later post). I’m not alone in my hatred for Adobe Reader: see here and here.

PDF Stamp ($20) – This program does allow you to add page numbers, but they end up right at the very edge of the page, which means that they get cut off when printing.  Also, this program is supposedly from Blitztools, but their website makes no mention of it.  There is a program called PDF Stamp for Windows from verypdf.com, so perhaps Blitztools surrendered the name?  Anyway, I’m assuming the application has been abandoned by its developers.  You can still find it here from download.com.  You can download a 30 day trial, but I’m not sure how you’d buy a license when the trial has expired – I’ve looked.

PDF Pen ($50) Allows you to insert page numbers into PDFs but, so far as I can tell, (1) it only allows you to stick the page number at the bottom left corner, (2) the page numbers have to start at one, and (3) you cannot automatically prefix the page numbers.  This would not be very useful for bates stamping large numbers of files in numerous batches.

PDF Pen Pro ($95) So far as I can tell, PDF Pen Pro does not improve upon the page numbering functionality of PDF Pen.

As you can see, the options for bates stamping PDFs on a Mac are limited. You can have a $450 application that does a good job – but it costs $450, or you can spend less on any of several applications that don’t do this job very well.

That’s why I think, so far, A-PDF is the best solution.  I already spent the $80 on VM Ware Fusion, and I had a copy of Windows XP that I bought from my law school’s book store for $5 or $10.

As you can see from the picture below, you simply choose the document you would like to bates stamp, choose the page number to start, choose to prefix each page number with whatever you wish and click the Process button, and you’re done.

And, here is the result.  Simple, easy, free.

There are other great PDF tools for the Mac, both free and paid, but, so far as I can tell, none of them allow for page numbering in any sort of automated fashion. That said, some of the applications mentioned in this post may be well suited for other tasks, but those are not the subject of this post.