Design Center article

Bates numbering is named after the Bates automatic numbering machine where an arbitrary unique numeric or alphanumeric identifier is generated for each page of each document used in a case. The number is unique to the documents disclosed or produced in a case, but there isn’t a standardized algorithm for determining the number.

Adobe® Acrobat® 8 Professional offers a Bates numbering feature that is configured through the Add Headers and Footers dialog. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to apply Bates numbering to an Adobe PDF package.

Requirements

To complete this article, you will need the following software:

Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional

• Try
• Buy (Professional)
• Buy (Standard)

Prerequisite knowledge:

None

Applying bates numbering to a PDF package

To apply numbers to the files in the PDF Package by following these steps:

1. Choose Advanced > Document Processing > Bates Numbering > Add. An information dialog opens, explaining the selected file is part of a PDF Package and that numbering must be applied to each file separately.
2. Click OK to close the information dialog and open the Bates Numbering dialog (Figure 1).

    

   

   Figure 1: Select files to include in the Bates Numbering dialog, including open files.

3. Select the "Include all open PDF documents" check box to add the open PDF file to the Files Selected list. Click Next.
4. The Bates Numbering dialog closes and is replaced by the Add Header and Footer dialog.
5. Click Insert Bates Number to open the Bates Numbering Options dialog (Figure 2).

    

   

   Figure 2: Choose from a number of options for configuring the page number.

6. Specify the Number of Digits, Start Number, Prefix, and Suffix as required for your naming convention and click OK to close the dialog. The minimum number of digits allowed is six. For example, type "img" into the Prefix field to identify the file as an image.
7. In the Add Header and Footer dialog, the number is shown in its default position in the upper center of the header (Figure 3). In the Left Header Text field, the automatic numbering formula is shown and is written as <<Bates Number#6#1#img#>>.

    

   

   (+) view larger
   Figure 3: View the automatic number’s location on the page in the preview area of the dialog.

8. Click OK to close the dialog; click OK again to close the dialog that states the numbering has been applied successfully. Check out the page and its number in the Document pane (Figure 4).

    

   

   Figure 4: You can see how the finished number is placed on the document.

9. Save the document. Note Once a file is added to a PDF Package, it becomes a separate file and is not influenced by any changes made to the original; nor does making changes in the PDF Package’s document make any changes to the original.

Where to go from here

For more information about security features in Acrobat 8, check out these other great resources:

• Acrobat Design Center
• Adobe Video Workshop
• Adding a background or watermark to a PDF file, by Donna Baker

About the authors