Format & style PDFs
Watermarks, headers, page numbers, bookmarks and print-ready polish. How to add the finishing touches that make a PDF look deliberate.
Latest in Format & Style
20 articles
Bates Numbering Across a Batch of PDFs
Discovery sets live or die by a single running number. Bates stamps it across every file in one batch.
Format & StyleBates Stamping: Check the Sequence Before You Run
The number is the citation, so a gap or a repeat is worse than a wrong font. Set the counters and the batch order before the first page is stamped.
Format & StyleRemove Comments and Highlights From a PDF
A review round leaves a PDF covered in other people's notes. Removing the annotations leaves the document clean.
Format & StyleRemoving PDF Annotations Without Losing Page Content
Not every mark on a page is an annotation. Knowing which layer a highlight lives on decides whether removal cleans the file or changes nothing.
Format & StyleDeskew Scanned PDF Pages Straight
A page fed at two degrees looks fine until it is printed or OCR'd. Deskewing measures the tilt and corrects it.
Format & StyleEdit PDF Metadata: Title, Author, Keywords
The title bar of a PDF viewer shows whatever the producer wrote. Fixing the metadata is the last step before publishing.
Format & StyleDeskew Before OCR: Getting the Angle Right
Straightening a scan is easy to overdo. Automatic detection, a fixed angle and the strongly-skewed filter each solve a different kind of lean.
Format & StyleExtract Images From a PDF as JPG or PNG
The photos are inside the PDF, not lost in it. Extraction returns them as files you can reuse.
Format & StylePDF Metadata Before Publishing: What to Set and Clear
Metadata is the part of a file that gets copied into previews, search results and document libraries. It is worth a minute before the file is published.
Format & StyleExtract Images or Render Pages? Choosing the Right Pull
A PDF holds two kinds of picture: the images it embedded and the page as it is drawn. Extraction returns the first; rendering returns the second.
Format & StyleConvert a PDF to Grayscale for Printing
Colour pages cost more to print and often read no better. Grayscale keeps the structure and drops the ink.
Format & StyleAdd a Header or Footer to Every PDF Page
Case numbers, client names, page counts: the line belongs on every page, and it should number itself.
Format & StyleGrayscale or Black? Choose the Right Mono Conversion
Grayscale is not one setting. Text and images convert separately, and the difference between grey and black decides whether small type survives the printer.
Format & StyleAdd Page Numbers to a PDF
A PDF without page numbers is hard to cite and impossible to staple. Numbering takes one pass.
Format & StyleHeader & Footer: Tokens, Start Number and Margins
One line, repeated on every page, multiplies every mistake. Tokens and the start number deserve a minute before the run.
Format & StyleAdd Bookmarks to a PDF and Build the Outline
The sidebar outline is how readers move through a long PDF. Building it takes a list of titles and page numbers.
Format & StylePage Numbers vs. Headers: Which Line Do You Need?
Numbering looks like a one-setting job until the cover, the front matter and a continuation volume arrive in the same file.
Format & StyleBookmarks That Print: Outline Plus a Contents Page
A bookmark tree helps on screen; a contents page helps on paper. The tool can produce both, but only if you account for the page it inserts.
Format & StyleAdd a Watermark to a PDF in Seconds
DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, or a client's logo: a watermark says something about the document without editing its content.
Format & StyleWatermark a PDF: Text Lines, Opacity and Tiling
Watermarks fail in quiet ways: a line break creates extra files, and a mark that looks right on screen disappears in print.