How to Bates Stamp a PDF Production of Scanned Documents

To Bates stamp a PDF production that began as scanned paper, split the scans into documents, put the files in production order, and run your PDF software's Bates numbering tool so every page carries a prefix and a fixed-width number. Then check the last number against the page count before anything leaves the office.

What is a Bates stamp, and what does it have to identify?

A Bates stamp is a label printed on every page of a production, and it has to identify that page and no other. A prefix can also name who produced it.

The Sedona Conference Glossary defines a Bates number as a "Sequential numbering system used to identify individual pages of documents where each page or file is assigned a unique number."

The same entry adds that the number is "Often used in conjunction with a suffix or prefix to identify a producing party, the litigation, or other relevant information." So a stamp such as TOL000412 answers two questions at a glance: whose production this page came from, and which page of it this is.

A stamp is useful only if three things are true of the whole set:

• Unique. No two pages in the case carry the same label, including pages from different producing parties and later volumes.
• Sequential. The numbers run without unexplained jumps, so a reader can tell whether a page is missing.
• Permanent. Once a page has gone out under a number, that number is never given to a different page.

What the stamp does not record is just as important. It does not say where a document begins or ends, who the custodian was, or which request the page answers. Those facts live in the list that accompanies the production. The stamp is the key that the list, the deposition exhibits and the briefs all point to.

Per-page numbering is one convention, and it is the one this post assumes. The EDRM Production Standards note an alternative in a passage on the images of redacted files: "The same number may be applied to each page within a document or the numbers can increment by page." Read your ESI protocol or the request's instructions before you start, because the recipient's rule controls.

Records you obtained from a non-party are a separate case. They may reach you with no numbers at all, and the post on OCR for subpoenaed records covers numbering them at intake.

Choosing a Bates prefix, digit count and starting number

Choose a prefix that names the producing party in a few capital letters, a digit count wide enough for every page you could ever produce in the case, and a starting number of 1 for the first volume. Write the scheme down before stamping, because all three are hard to change once pages have been served.

The prefix

Keep it short and unmistakable. Three to five letters drawn from the party's name work well. Two things to check before you commit:

• Collisions. Look at every production already received in the case. If another party is using TF, do not pick TF or TFI.
• Characters. Stick to letters, and an underscore or hyphen only if the protocol shows one. Bates numbers can become file names, and the SEC's Data Delivery Standards give an example of how strict a recipient can be: "File names cannot contain embedded spaces or special characters (including the comma)." Adobe's own guidance for Acrobat adds a tool-specific limit: "Avoid using the # character in the prefix or suffix."

A prefix can carry more than the party name when the case needs it. A separate prefix for documents obtained from a non-party, or for a set produced under a different designation, keeps those pages distinguishable forever. Use that sparingly. Each prefix is a separate sequence somebody has to track.

Choose the prefix before you stamp the first page of the discovery response. Pages from your client and pages from a non-party stay easier to cite when each production has its own prefix. Write the first number and the last number in the transmittal. You pull documentary evidence by those numbers, so note any gap in the log on the day you stamp.

The digit count

The number is padded with leading zeros to a fixed width so that file names sort correctly. Width sets the ceiling:

Pick the width for the end of the case, not the first volume. If page 10,000 arrives in a four-digit scheme, the fifth digit changes the label's length and breaks sorting. Adobe's page on adding Bates numbering in Acrobat Pro says that tool accepts 3 to 15 digits, that "The default is 6 digits, generating Bates numbers like 000001, 000002, and so on", and offers this tip: "For large documents, increase the number of digits."

The starting number

Start the first volume at 1. Start every later volume at the previous volume's last number plus one. Do not start at a round number to leave room, because a gap in the sequence then has to be explained to the recipient.

A scheme on one line

For the fictional defendant Tolliver Foods, the scheme reads: prefix TOL, six digits, no separator, no suffix, first page TOL000001. Put that line at the top of the production log and give it to everyone who stamps.

Where should the Bates stamp sit on a scanned page?

Put the Bates stamp where the protocol says, and if it says nothing, in the same corner of every page, inside the margin, clear of the scanned content. One published standard picks the lower right corner: the SEC's Data Delivery Standards require that "Images must be endorsed with sequential Bates numbers in the lower right corner of each image."

Scanned pages raise placement problems that word-processed pages do not, because the page image runs to the edge and was never laid out with a stamp in mind. Check a sample from each box for the following.

• Rotation. A landscape ledger scanned sideways has a different "bottom" than the pages around it. Decide whether to rotate such pages upright before stamping, so the stamp reads the same way as the content.
• Mixed paper sizes. Legal and letter sheets in one file put a corner stamp at different distances from the content. Set the stamp by margin from the page edge, not by a fixed position from the top.
• Dark edges. Photocopies of photocopies carry black borders. A black stamp printed on a black band is invisible. Look at whether your tool can add a white box behind the number or shrink the page image to leave a clean margin, and test the result.
• Content in the corner. Forms and statements can fill the bottom margin with page numbers and revision codes. If the bottom is crowded across the set, a top corner used consistently is better than a bottom corner that collides on every tenth page.
• Size and colour. Choose a plain font large enough to read on a printed page and dark enough to survive another photocopy.

One rule outranks all of these: the stamp must not hide anything on the page. If no corner is clear on a given page, adding margin around the image is safer than printing over content. What a stamp does to the print beneath it, and how recognition handles the collision, is covered in the post on OCR for Bates numbered documents.

Applying Bates numbers across a multi-file PDF production

Apply Bates numbers to all the files of a volume in one run, so the software carries the count from the last page of one file to the first page of the next. Before the run, fix the file order. After it, confirm that the last number equals the starting number plus the total page count, minus one.

Before you stamp

1. Work on copies. Keep the unstamped set untouched in its own folder. It is your way back if the scheme or the order turns out wrong.
2. One file per document. The files should already be split at document boundaries. Stamping does not do that for you.
3. Fix the order. Name the working files so they sort in production order, for example 0001_, 0002_, with attachments directly after the document they came with.
4. Remove what should not be numbered. Separator sheets and blank backs either come out now or stay in and take a number. Decide once.
5. Count the pages. Add up the page counts of every file. Write the total down.
6. Settle the sequence with OCR. Whether recognition runs before or after the stamp depends on what you are producing, and the guide to whether to OCR before or after Bates stamping sets out each case.

The run, using Acrobat Pro as the example

The steps here follow Adobe's documentation for Acrobat Pro. If you use a different PDF editor, read its own help page for the Bates tool and its menu names.

1. Open a PDF and select Edit, then More > Bates numbering > Add.
2. In the Bates Numbering dialog, add the files. Adobe lists three ways: Add Files, Add Folders and Add Open Files.
3. Put the list in production order. Adobe's page describes Move Up and Move Down, and sorting by clicking a column name.
4. Open Output Options and send the stamped files to a new, empty folder so the originals are not overwritten. Adobe's page on adding Bates numbers to file names says these options cover "the target folder, file naming conventions, and log file preferences".
5. In the Add Header and Footer dialog, place the cursor in the box for the position you chose and select Insert Bates Number.
6. Enter the Number of Digits, Start Number, Prefix and Suffix from your scheme, and confirm.

Adobe's page states one limit plainly: "Protected, encrypted files, and some form types aren't supported." If a file in your set carries a restriction, go back to whoever supplied it for an unrestricted copy.

Naming the output

A recipient may require files named by their numbers. The SEC's standards say "If PDF files are Bates endorsed, the PDF files must be named by the Bates range." In Acrobat, the Output Options dialog has an Add to original file names choice, and Adobe's instructions are to enter %BATES_NUMBER_KEY% in the Insert Before or Insert After field. Run a three-file test and look at the names it produces before you run a whole volume.

After you stamp

Check arithmetic first, then eyes.

• Last number. For Tolliver Foods, volume 1 holds 2,348 pages starting at TOL000001. The last stamp must read TOL002348. Open the last page of the last file and read it.
• Seams. Open the first page of five files spread through the list. Each should be one more than the last page of the file before it.
• Legibility. Page through a sample at normal zoom, including the darkest and most crowded pages in the set.
• Text. If the files were searchable before stamping, search one for a word you can see and confirm the text layer is still there.

To find a stamped page later, Adobe's page on searching for Bates-numbered PDFs describes entering "the complete Bates number" in an advanced search across a folder.

Schema Law does not apply Bates numbers. Its part in this workflow is reading the pages: upload a PDF and export a searchable PDF or plain text of what is on them.

Confidentiality legends stamped alongside the Bates number

A confidentiality legend is a second line of text printed on each designated page, separate from the Bates number. Take its exact wording from the protective order, apply it only to the documents that carry the designation, and keep it in a different position from the number so neither crowds the other.

The order decides the details, so read it for four things before stamping:

Legends differ from Bates numbers in one mechanical way: the number goes on every page of the production, and the legend goes on some of it. That means the legend is a separate pass, or a separate group of files, not a setting you turn on for the whole volume.

A workable order of operations:

1. Sort the unstamped documents into folders by designation: none, confidential, and any higher tier.
2. Run Bates numbering across the whole volume in production order, so the sequence is unbroken.
3. Run a header or footer pass on each designated folder to add its legend, in the opposite bottom corner or centred at the foot.
4. Record the designation against each document's range in the production log.

Whether your software can add the legend in the same dialog as the number is worth testing. Adobe's instructions have you place the cursor "in the appropriate box" of the Add Header and Footer dialog and then insert the Bates number. They do not say whether a legend can be typed into another box of that dialog in the same run, so try it on three test files before relying on it. The risk in a single pass is stamping the legend on documents that should not have it.

What a designation means for people who handle converted copies is its own subject, covered in the post on confidential and attorneys' eyes only designations after conversion.

How do you restart, extend or correct a Bates range after production?

Extend a range by starting the next volume at the last number plus one. Do not restart a prefix at 1. Correct a mistake freely before the set is served, and after service only by a documented replacement that the receiving party is told about, with no number ever reused for a different page.

Extending

Keep a production log with one row per volume. It is the only place the next starting number is recorded.

Fill in the next start the moment a volume is served. In the stamping tool, enter that figure as the start number and leave the prefix and digit count unchanged.

Restarting

A new sequence is justified when the source is different, for example documents from a second producing party or a non-party, and then it gets its own prefix. Restarting the same prefix at 1 creates two pages with one label, which defeats the purpose of the stamp.

Correcting before service

If the set has not left the office, discard the stamped output and stamp the unstamped copies again. If you no longer have unstamped copies, Adobe documents a way to remove Bates numbering in Acrobat Pro through Edit > More > Bates numbering > Remove. Test that on your files, since a stamp that has been flattened into a page image by printing or scanning is part of the picture.

Correcting after service

Once pages are served, other people may have cited them. The table sets out choices to discuss with the supervising lawyer. Any agreement between the parties or court order on the subject controls.

The principle behind every row is the same. A number that has been served keeps its meaning. You add, replace or explain. You do not shift a sequence so that pages already cited answer to different labels.

When each volume is final, record its range in the cover letter and the log, and store the stamped set, the unstamped copies and the log together. The Schema Law pricing page lists page limits per plan if you need searchable text of the stamped pages for your own working copy.