Roman numeral page labels
Number the front matter i, ii, iii and let the body start at 1 — in the reader, not on the page.
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Drop your PDF here
or choose it from your files
Your files are never transmitted. Nothing is uploaded.
Before you start
- Set how many cover and Roman-numbered pages there are; the body then starts at 1.
- Has an appendix? Set the page it starts on so it gets its own numbering.
Good to know
- Accepts
- Files at once
- One at a time
- Transmission
- None — nothing is uploaded.
Chain it
Run this tool and the next one back to back — nothing to download in between.
How to do it
Add your file
Add the document that has front matter — a thesis, a book, a report with a preface before the main text.
Set it up the way you want
Set how many cover pages come first, how many front-matter pages get i, ii, iii, where the body starts at 1, and — if there are appendices — the page where A-1 begins. The preview shows the label of each section’s first and last page.
Download the result
Download the file. Your reader’s page box now shows iv and 1 where the document says iv and 1.
Questions about Roman numeral page labels
- This did not print anything on my pages.
- Correct, and it is deliberate. There are two different numbers in every PDF: the one printed on the paper and the one your reader shows in its page box. This tool sets the second. To print numbers onto the page itself, use Add page numbers — and a proper thesis usually needs both.
- Why does the reader’s number matter?
- Because when it is wrong, page 12 of the file is page iv of the document and every cross-reference is off by the length of the preface. A supervisor typing "see page 40" lands somewhere else entirely, and nobody can tell whose fault it is.
- Which numbering does a thesis need?
- The usual rule: title page and preface in roman numerals, main text starting again at arabic 1, appendices continuing from the body. Set that boundary here and print the matching numbers with the page-number tool, and the file behaves the way an examiner expects.