PDF Add Cover Page

Two ways to add a cover

Prepending an existing PDF or image is right when the cover was designed elsewhere, in a layout tool or as a branded template. Generating one from a title, subtitle, date and author is right when you need something serviceable immediately and design is not the point, which covers most reports, submissions and internal documents.

Page size has to match

A cover at a different size from the body produces a mixed-size document. On screen this merely looks inconsistent; in print it causes tray switching, unexpected scaling or a prompt, and in bound output it is visibly wrong. Confirm the body's page dimensions before designing or attaching a cover. An A4 body with a Letter cover is the most common mismatch, since the two are close enough that nobody notices until it prints.

Everything after the cover shifts by one

Adding a front page moves every existing page one position later. Anything referencing absolute page positions is now off by one: printed page numbers in footers, a table of contents, cross-references in the text, and bookmarks that target page indices. Add the cover before numbering and before generating a contents page, not after.

Covers and first-page impressions

A cover carries the document's identity in the file manager thumbnail, in an email preview and in most document management systems, all of which render page one. A generic or blank first page makes a document harder to identify in a list, which is a small thing that compounds across a large archive.

Metadata is separate

Adding a cover with a title on it does not set the document's title metadata. Those are different fields, and search tools and document systems read the metadata, not the visible page. Set both.

Local processing

The cover is attached in your browser and neither file is uploaded.