How to add a watermark to a PDF
- Add the PDF you want to mark.
- Type the watermark text —
DRAFTandCONFIDENTIALare the common ones. - Choose a layout: Diagonal across the page, Centred, or Tiled repeatedly. Adjust size, colour and opacity to taste.
- Press Add watermark, then Save the marked PDF.
About this tool
A watermark stamps text across every page of a PDF so its status travels with the file. This free watermarking tool applies it in your browser, without uploading the document.
The point is to make a document hard to misuse by accident. A contract marked DRAFT will not be mistaken for the signed version, and a report marked CONFIDENTIAL carries that warning into every printout and screenshot of it. This is a deterrent rather than a security measure — it does not encrypt or lock anything, and someone determined can remove it.
Opacity is the setting that matters most. Too faint and it is missed; too strong and the document becomes hard to read. Around 15% works for most text documents, though pages with dark images or large blocks of colour usually need more to show up at all.
Layout depends on intent. Diagonal is the familiar choice and the hardest to crop out. Centred is subtler and suits documents where readability comes first. Tiled repeats the text across the whole page, which is the most obtrusive and the most difficult to remove cleanly.
Because opacity is so easy to get wrong, the first page is previewed beside the controls and redraws as you adjust them. The preview is generated by stamping a real copy of the page through the same code the download uses, so it cannot drift from the result — a preview that lies about the output is worse than no preview at all.
Two practical notes. On unusually small pages a large tiled watermark will be sparse, because the spacing is derived from the text size rather than the paper; reduce the size if a small page looks bare. And if you are marking a batch of documents with the same status, add them all at once — the same settings are applied to each and they come back together as a ZIP.
Frequently asked questions
- What opacity should I use?
- Around 15% suits most text documents. Raise it if the pages contain dark images, lower it if the watermark competes with the text.
- Can the watermark be removed?
- By someone determined, yes. It is drawn into the page content, so it is not trivial to strip — but a watermark is a deterrent, not a security control.
- Can I use an image or logo as the watermark?
- Not currently — this tool applies text watermarks only.
- Is my document uploaded to watermark it?
- No. The watermark is applied in your browser and the file never leaves your device.
- Does it mark every page?
- Yes, the watermark is applied to all pages of the document.