Bates stamp cheap?

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Level 2

258 points

Bates stamp cheap?

I have a PDF that is over 100 pages long. I want to add page numbers to the document. The preferred style is "Bates Stamp." What is the cheapest way of doing this?

I have Preview, of course. I also have Adobe Acrobat Reader and GraphicConverter 8. I do not have Pages here, but I do have access to that program elsewhere. I have Word.

Can I add page numbers to this PDF document with what I have? Or do I have to buy something, or worse, go to a nearby Windows machine?

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 31, 2020 2:35 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,208 points

Jan 20, 2021 11:38 AM in response to R_55a

Hmm, that's odd. All I did was choose to open a file from with Word (same version as yours). I picked the 2010 Mac Mini manual. If first shows this as Word is busy importing the many pages in the PDF.

It then opens in Word.

But as first noted, the PDF doesn't even have to be very complex for Word to open it as a mess. The above image is how the first three pages imported. It's something, but not very useful. Below is how they're supposed to look.

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,208 points

Dec 31, 2020 2:53 PM in response to R_55a

PDF editors aren't free. At least, I've never seen one that is.

Normally, I use Acrobat Pro. What I did discover just now is MS Word can be used to edit a PDF.

You open the PDF with Word. A message is shown that Word is busy converting the document. As an example, I opened a 115 page PDF of Apple's manual for a 2010 Mac Mini.

It's not perfect. Images shifted out of position could not be moved. That and other flaws, such as, it can't open a secured PDF.

But the text in the 2010 manual I opened was fully editable. If I wanted to, I could change text anywhere in the manual and output it from Word as a new PDF.

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Answer 3

Kurt Lang

Level 9

62,208 points

Jan 20, 2021 1:27 PM in response to R_55a

Ah! Yes, I forgot to mention that. It won't open a password protected PDF.

I also tried three of the PDF converters on the App Store. Well, actually only one. The first two were clearly the same app under different names, and each would automatically launch a $10 per month subscription fee if you clicked on "Start free trial". Those immediately went in the trash. The last would do the first three pages for free. It didn't do much better than Word.

The output from Acrobat Pro was of course perfect. Not much of a surprise since the PDF format was invented by Adobe. If anyone would know how to handle PDFs, it would be them.

PDF Expert - Edit and Sign PDF in the App Store gets great reviews and has been around for quite a while. It's $80 up front with no hidden in app purchases to get all of the features. However, I've never tried it since I have Acrobat Pro. So I can't in any way vouch for how well it works, or if it can export a Word document from a PDF.

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