Add a text or image watermark to your PDF

What this watermark tool does

A watermark is a visible mark laid across the pages of a document to say what it is or whose it is: Draft, Copy, a company name, a logo. This tool draws that mark onto the pages you choose and saves the result as a new PDF. Your original file stays as it was.

There are two kinds. A text watermark lets you set the font, size, color, opacity and rotation, and place it once in the center or repeat it in a tiled pattern across the whole page. An image watermark takes a PNG or JPG, such as a logo or a stamp, and lets you set its scale and opacity. Either can be applied to all pages or only to a range.

The mark is drawn on top of the page content, not behind it. That is why opacity matters: at a low value the page underneath stays readable, at a high value the mark can hide the text it covers.

Choosing opacity, size and rotation

The purpose of a watermark decides its strength. A DRAFT or DO NOT COPY notice should be seen at a glance, so it can be large and reasonably strong. A brand mark on a document that someone must read for pages should be light enough that it never competes with the text.

As a starting point, use an opacity somewhere between 10 and 25 percent for a light grey mark, and go stronger only for short warning words. A rotation of about 45 degrees is the familiar diagonal that crosses the whole page and is harder to overlook than a straight, horizontal mark. Try one page range first, open the file and check the result on your densest page before you process the whole document.

• Light grey at low opacity reads well on white pages and does not print as a heavy block.
• Pale colors disappear on dark or photographic pages, so raise the opacity or switch to white for those.
• A very long text at a large size can run past the page edge; shorten the words or reduce the size.

Centered versus tiled marks

A single centered mark is easy to read and looks tidy, but it sits in one place. If it crosses a signature or a figure, that part becomes harder to read, and a determined reader can crop the page or cover the mark.

A tiled mark repeats across the page in a grid. It is less pretty, but there is no single spot to cut away, and any part of the page that gets photographed or screenshotted still carries some of the mark. Tiling suits sensitive drafts and per-recipient copies. For a formal document where appearance matters, the centered version is usually the better fit.

Watermark limits and what to use next

Because a watermark is drawn on top of the page as ordinary content, it is a deterrent and a label, not protection. A person with a PDF editor can delete it. If you need to limit what a reader can do with the file, add a password with Protect PDF, and remember that permission limits are only respected by cooperating PDF software.

If the goal is to hide sensitive information, a watermark is the wrong tool: use Redact PDF, which removes the covered content. If your image watermark makes the file large, run the result through Compress PDF.