This feature is available in the Advanced version of Power PDF.
Bates Numbering is a procedure used primarily in legal, medical, and business areas to uniquely identify each page in a set of documents by assigning a series of self-incrementing numbers. The Bates number appears as a header or footer on specified pages (typically and by default on all pages). The Bates number can include a prefix and/or a suffix, and it may be combined with other header and footer texts which may be user-defined wordings or predefined items placed by macros (such as page numbers or document properties such as Subject, Title, Author etc.). The Bates number itself is placed into a header or footer as a macro.
Once the files to be Bates numbers are defined, you move to the Headers and Footers dialog box. Its macro list will offer Bates numbering as the first choice. You can however move to different choices and create a header or footer that does not include a Bates number. Bates numbers do not organize or index your documents in any way, nor modify their names.
Note
Bates Numbering is not available for encrypted files or those protected by digital signatures.
Adding a Bates Number
Select Edit > Insert > Bates Numbering and choose Add from the drop-down list to open the Add Bates Numbers dialog box.
Click Add Files. The Open dialog box is displayed.
Select one or more files to add them to the numbering queue. A folder selection is also possible. To include any files currently open in the program, choose Include the opened documents.
To change the order of files already in the queue, select the file and click Move Up or Move Down, or click Delete Files to remove the selected file from the queue.
The Preview button lets you check that you have chosen the intended documents for stamping. It is important to fix the desired file order before stamping.
Click Output to display the Add Bates Numbers - Output Rules dialog box.
Specify the destination folder: choose the same folder where the original file is located, or click Browse to choose another.
Define file naming rules: you can keep the original names, add a prefix and/or a suffix to them, or replace them by a starting and ending Bates number as shown in the on-screen example.
Decide if you want overwrite existing files or keep them under unique names.
You can create an automatic log file: click Browse to choose a location to save it.
Click OK to return to the Add Bates Numbers dialog box.
Click OK in the Add Bates Numbers dialog box to call the Header and Footer dialog box.
Select an existing scheme in the drop-down list if you have a suitable one. Choose Extend numbering from preceding job with currently selected scheme to make the Bates numbering for documents processed with this scheme continuous.
In the Macros selection box, choose Bates Number and click Settings.
In the Bates Numbering Options dialog box, specify the number of digits (between 6 and 15) to be used, the starting number, and, if you want, a prefix and/or a suffix for the Bates Number to be stamped on your document, then click OK.
Specify the area where Bates Numbers should be stamped and click Insert Macro.
For the remaining settings, see Headers and Footers.
Note
You can apply more than one Bates stamp to a document; be sure to specify a different location for a second stamp.
Be sure also that the Bates stamp location does not collide with any existing header or footer texts. To see this in the preview area, you must save the header and footer data to a named scheme, and then load the scheme. If you apply headers and/or footers without saving the scheme, you will not see these elements.
Removing Bates Stamps
Select Edit > Insert > Bates Numbering > Remove to permanently remove Bates numbers from currently open files. Other header and/or footer elements, if any, are retained.
An information box instructs you how to interpret the results of the operation.
Note
Bates stamps applied from other PDF programs or created with other tools may not be recognized by the program. You should visually confirm stamp removal.
If you insert pages into a PDF document that is Bates stamped, the inserted pages are not stamped and the Bates numbering remains unchanged. If you delete stamped pages, the Bates numbering will no longer be consecutive.