How to Remove Page Numbers from a PDF

Page numbers arrive embedded in files from every source — a downloaded report, a scanned contract, a shareholder deck — and you often need a clean version without them. The right method depends only on one thing: whether the numbers are real text or part of a scanned picture. Both cases are solvable in the browser with no upload.

Method 1 — numbers stored as text

1. 1Open the Edit PDF tool and drop in your file.
2. 2Click on the page number so the line of text is selected.
3. 3Choose delete — the number is removed, and the rest of the header or footer stays if the digits shared a line with other text.
4. 4Repeat for the pages you want, then download.

Because the numbers are real characters, they delete cleanly with nothing left behind — no white boxes, no smudges, just the page without the digit.

Method 2 — numbers burned into a scan

1. 1For a scanned page the number is pixels, so no text tool can select it.
2. 2Open the Crop tool instead and trim the margin that carries the page numbers.
3. 3Set the crop to apply to every page so the result is consistent, then download.

This is the honest white-space route: by cutting the strip where the numbers live, the crop removes them and a neat trim usually improves the page too.

Removing numbers from only some pages

Both tools edit or crop page by page, so you can leave numbering on the back pages and strip it from the cover or the appendix. For a document where the numbers matter elsewhere, that selective control is exactly what you need.

Add fresh numbering afterwards

Once the old numbers are gone, the Add Page Numbers tool lets you insert clean new ones with the format and position you choose — handy when a downloaded template has numbers in the wrong place or style. Note that new numbering applies across the pages you select rather than skipping a cover automatically.