Watermark PDF pages with text or an image
Use this tool to watermark PDF documents in a few clicks: mark a draft as DRAFT, label a confidential copy, put your logo on a proposal, or print the name of the person a copy was prepared for along the bottom of each page. The watermark is drawn into the page content itself, not added as a comment, so it shows in every PDF reader and prints with the page.
The preview shows the first page you selected exactly as it will be saved, because it is made by the same code that writes the final file.
The options explained
| Option | What you can set |
|---|---|
| Text | One or more lines; each line is centred on the others. |
| Font | Helvetica, Times or Courier, regular or bold: the standard PDF fonts every reader provides. |
| Font size | 8 to 200 points. |
| Image | A PNG or JPG, sized as a percentage of the page width with its proportions kept. A PNG keeps its transparent background. |
| Colour and opacity | Any colour for text; opacity from 5% (barely visible) to 100% (solid). |
| Angle | 45° rising, 0° horizontal, −45° falling, 90° vertical, or any custom angle from −180° to 180°, counterclockwise. |
| Position | Centre, top, bottom or one of the four corners, half an inch from the edges, or tiled in staggered rows across the whole page. |
| Layer | Over the content or behind it (see below). |
| Pages | All pages, or a range such as 1-3, 5, 8-. |
Typical settings
- Draft: “DRAFT”, Helvetica Bold, 60 pt, grey, 25% opacity, 45°, centre.
- Confidential: “CONFIDENTIAL”, red, 24 pt, 15% opacity, 30°, tiled, so the mark covers every part of each page.
- Logo: a transparent PNG at 20% of the page width, 40% opacity, 0°, bottom right.
- Personal copy: “Prepared for A. Lee, 14 March”, 10 pt, 60% opacity, 0°, bottom. If a copy is passed on, you know whose it was.
Over or behind the content
Over the content draws the watermark on top of everything on the page. It is always visible; keep the opacity low so the text underneath stays readable.
Behind the content puts the watermark's drawing instructions before the page's own, so the page is painted on top of it. On ordinary documents with an unpainted white background this looks like a watermark printed on the paper, and text stays crisp. On scanned pages, however, the scan is one picture covering the whole page and it hides anything behind it. For scans, choose Over the content with an opacity of 15% to 30%.
Landscape and rotated pages
Positions and angles are measured on the page as you see it. A landscape page, or a page that is stored sideways and turned for display, gets its watermark in the visible centre or corner, at the angle you chose. Pages with a crop box are measured by the visible area, not the larger paper size behind it.
Good to know
- The standard PDF fonts cover Western European characters. For other scripts, make an image of the text and use an image watermark.
- Password-protected or restricted PDFs cannot be changed. Remove the protection with Unlock PDF first.
- A watermark deters copying and shows status; it is not access control. Someone with a PDF editor can remove it. To keep a file private, also encrypt it with Protect PDF.
- Watermarking several files? Combine them first with Merge PDF and mark them all in one pass.
Privacy
Your PDF and your logo are processed by your browser and never uploaded. Nothing is stored, and the original file is not changed: you download a new, watermarked copy.