Bates numbering | Typography for Lawyers

Bates numbering

Try orange Franklin Gothic

Just as paper is yielding to PDF as the preferred format for discovery, manually stamped Bates numbering is yielding to digital numbering.

I prefer the convenience of digital Bates numbering. But I miss the look of the stamp. The blue ink and the distinct font made the number easy to spot on the page, even after being photocopied. Digital Bates numbering is often small, black, and set in Times New Roman or Arial—all of which camouflages the numbers.

Tips for making digital Bates numbers stand out:

Make the point size reasonably big—not smaller than 12 point.
Use a font with good numerals. Among system fonts, I like Franklin Gothic Medium or Franklin Gothic Demi. Avoid fonts that are condensed or dark on the page (e.g., Arial Black). These fonts are hard to read at small sizes and don’t stand up well to scanning or photocopying.
Use color. I recommend a medium-dark orange. Not the most attractive, but it stands out because orange rarely occurs in discovery (unless you’re suing a pumpkin company). Orange isn’t so bright that it gets washed out when reproduced in black and white.
Make sure your Bates numbers don’t get stamped in the content of the document. Adobe Acrobat can shrink documents uniformly so there’s a clean margin for the numbering.

How to apply customized Bates numbering

Adobe AcrobatIn Acrobat 8 or 9, go to Advanced → Document Processing → Bates Numbering → Add. In Acrobat X or XI, Tools panel → Pages → Bates Numbering → Add Bates Numbering. In Acrobat DC, Tools → Stamp → Bates Numbering → Add. Select the documents to be numbered and click OK. You’ll be taken to the Acrobat Add Header and Footer window. The middle of this window has six boxes corresponding to locations on the page (Left Header Text, Center Header Text, and so on). Click in the box where you want your Bates number. Click Insert Bates Number and then click OK. You will get a dinky, illegible Bates number. Near the top of the window, under the label Font, change the font and the point size. Click the black square to the right to change the color. To ensure your Bates numbers don’t collide with any page content, click Appearance Options and check Shrink document to avoid overwriting the document’s text and graphics. Click OK. Make any other necessary adjustments in the main window. Click OK to apply the Bates numbering.