Headers, footers and page numbers

Written for mPDF 8.2 on PHP 8.1+. Updated 2 November 2026.

mPDF repeats headers and footers on every page and fills in page numbers as it lays out the document.

The quick way

$mpdf->SetHTMLHeader('<div style="text-align: right; font-size: 9pt;">Acme Ltd · Quarterly report</div>');
$mpdf->SetHTMLFooter('<div style="text-align: center; font-size: 9pt;">Page {PAGENO} of {nbpg}</div>');
$mpdf->WriteHTML($body);

Call these before WriteHTML() so they apply from the first page. Make sure margin_top and margin_bottom are large enough to hold them. Otherwise the body runs underneath.

Placeholders

For a plain three-part footer, SetFooter('Left text|{PAGENO}|Right text') splits on the | characters into left, centre and right.

Named headers in the HTML

To keep everything in the template, define headers and footers as tags and attach them with @page:

<htmlpageheader name="main">
  <div style="border-bottom: 1px solid #999; font-size: 9pt;">Acme Ltd</div>
</htmlpageheader>
<htmlpagefooter name="main">
  <div style="text-align: right; font-size: 9pt;">{PAGENO} / {nbpg}</div>
</htmlpagefooter>
<style>
  @page { header: html_main; footer: html_main; margin-top: 25mm; margin-bottom: 20mm; }
</style>

Note the html_ prefix when you refer to the name. Different first pages, odd and even pages, and chapter pages are handled by naming more headers and switching with @page :first or named pages.

No header on the cover

Define a named page with no header for the cover, or start numbering after it:

<pagebreak resetpagenum="1" />

resetpagenum restarts {PAGENO} at the given number, which is useful when the cover and contents shouldn’t count. See page breaks.

Already have the PDF?

To number the pages of a finished file, without code, use Add page numbers, which runs in your browser.