My thesis is due Friday and my supervisor wants page numbers on every page of the PDF, but I’ve never done this before and the document is about 80 pages with a title page and table of contents I don’t want numbered. I’m on my laptop and need the numbers to start from the introduction, so any idea how to make that happen?
That is a horrible last-minute job, but it’s manageable. If you still have the original Word document, set a section break before the introduction, turn off “Link to Previous”, then start page numbering at 1 in that section before exporting to PDF. If you only have the PDF, I would use a PDF editor to add numbers, but check the title and contents pages are excluded in the page range.
Had the same thing last month with our bid docs. I used Adobe Acrobat to add numbers at the bottom starting from the intro page so the title and contents had none. If no Acrobat, try Word if you can open the PDF there, but layouts sometimes shift. That’s all I know from my end.
I’d do this in Word before it becomes a PDF. Put a section break before the introduction, then add page numbers and set that section to start at 1, so the title page and contents stay clean. If you only have the PDF, Word can open it and make it editable again.
I use PDFcap for my contracts when I need to number pages for clients. Just upload your thesis to pdfcap.com and select the page numbering tool. It lets you choose exactly which page the numbers start from, so your contents stay clean. It’s quite straightforward and should sort you out before Friday. Did you manage to get it working on your laptop?
henry2010 good call, being able to pick the exact starting page is what saves you here. My tip is to check the margins so the numbers dont land on top of any text or footnotes. And avoid overwriting your original file, keep a clean copy first. Learned that the hard way with a patron’s form last winter.