Add a watermark to a PDF
Stamp text or an image watermark across a PDF with opacity, rotation, size, colour, tiling and nine positions, previewed live on page one.
- Runs in your browser
- Files are never uploaded
- Free, no account
How to watermark a PDF
- Drop the PDF onto the box above.
- Choose Text and type the wording — DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, a client name, a date — or switch to Image and drop in a PNG or JPEG logo.
- Set opacity, rotation, size, colour and position. Turn on tiling to repeat the mark across the whole page.
- Watch the live preview, choose which pages to mark, then press Apply.
The preview is a real render of the page with the watermark drawn on top using the same geometry as the export, so the position, angle and coverage you see are what you get.
Settings that actually look good
| Look | Text | Size / angle | Opacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic diagonal draft | DRAFT | 60-80 pt, 45°, centred | 15-25% |
| Discreet corner stamp | Internal use only | 9-11 pt, 0°, bottom left | 55-70% |
| Anti-copy tiling | name@example.com | 14-18 pt, 30°, tiled, 40 pt gap | 8-12% |
| Logo on every page | PNG with transparency | 20-40% scale, 0°, top right | 60-100% |
Light grey at 15% is usually more readable underneath than red at 15% — coloured watermarks fight with body text. If the document will be printed in black and white, check that the mark is still distinguishable at your chosen opacity.
Over the content or behind it?
Over appends the watermark to the page's content stream, so it is always visible — the standard behaviour, and the right choice for a DRAFT stamp.
Behind has to rebuild the file: each original page is embedded as a single object, the watermark is drawn first and the page is drawn on top of it. Text stays perfectly crisp, but the rebuild flattens interactive extras — links, form fields and comments become part of the page image of the content. It also has no visible effect on scanned pages, where the opaque white background of the scan hides anything drawn beneath it.
What a watermark can and cannot do
A watermark discourages casual reuse and makes the status of a document obvious at a glance. It is not a security control: it is ordinary page content, and anyone with a full PDF editor can try to remove it. For per-recipient traceability, tiling a low-opacity recipient name across the page is far harder to clean up than a single central stamp — every tile would have to be removed without disturbing the text underneath.
Text watermarks use the fonts built into every PDF reader, which cover the WinAnsi character set: Latin letters, digits and common punctuation. Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Cyrillic or emoji cannot be drawn without embedding a font file — render those as a transparent PNG and use the image mode instead.
Questions
Can I use my logo instead of text?
Yes. Switch to image mode and drop in a PNG or JPEG — transparency in a PNG is preserved, and you can still set scale, opacity, rotation and tiling.
Is the watermark behind or in front of the content?
You choose. Drawing over the content is the visible default; behind the content keeps text fully legible but is hidden by opaque backgrounds such as full-page scans.
Can a watermark be removed by someone else?
Treat it as a deterrent, not protection. It is merged into the page content, but anyone with a full PDF editor can still attempt to strip it out.
Why is my accented or non-Latin text rejected?
The built-in PDF fonts cover the WinAnsi character set only. Characters outside it, such as Chinese or Cyrillic, cannot be drawn without embedding a custom font.
Can I watermark only some pages?
Yes. The page range box accepts values like 1, 4-8, 12- so covers or annexes can be left clean.