Upload a document and add a watermark, then download the result as a PDF in seconds.
CONFIDENTIAL already stamped on every page so you can see the result at once; common labels are DRAFT, SAMPLE, INTERNAL USE ONLY, a client name, or a date. Image mode shows a Choose image… button: pick a PNG (its transparency is kept), JPG, SVG, WebP, GIF, BMP, HEIC, AVIF or TIFF of up to 40 megapixels, and the logo appears on the pages at 30% of the page width.A watermark is the lightest-weight way to mark a PDF as not-for-redistribution. Unlike PDF password encryption, which blocks access entirely, a watermark keeps the document readable while making unauthorised use visually obvious. It's discouragement, not enforcement — but for most internal-review, draft-circulation, branding, and proof-of-ownership use cases that's exactly the right tool.
DRAFT or v1 — DO NOT CITE across every page prevents a colleague from accidentally forwarding a working copy to a client. Studios use the same trick on storyboards and architecture firms on early floor plans.CONFIDENTIAL — [Client Name] watermark on every page of a deliverable makes the chain of custody clear if the document leaks. Pair it with a password and you've covered access control and attribution at once.SUPERSEDED — see v3.2 across an outdated policy or spec so a stale copy fished out of someone's downloads folder still flags itself.EXHIBIT A or SUBMISSION COPY — DO NOT EDIT watermarks identify documents at a glance when stacks of similar-looking PDFs pile up in a case file or grading queue.| Approach | Stops viewing | Stops copying | Removable | What it's good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text or image watermark (this tool) | No | No | Yes — by editor or rasteriser | Drafts, branding, ownership marks, deterrence |
| Password / AES encryption | Yes — needs password | Partly (printing/copy restrictions can be set) | Yes — if password is known or cracked | Restricting who can open the file |
| Redaction (black-bar removal) | N/A — removes content | N/A | No — content is destroyed | Hiding PII before distribution |
| Flattening (no form/layer edits) | No | No | Removes edit affordances | Locking signed contracts and filled forms |
| DRM / rights management | Optional | Yes — viewer enforces rules | Practically no (without key) | Paid distribution, regulated industries |
A watermark is the right answer when you want the reader to see the document but be reminded of its status or its owner. If you want to stop access, encrypt. If you want to stop a specific section being read, redact. Many real workflows combine the three.
Both are available in this tool — pick one with the Watermark type switch. They suit different jobs:
| Property | Text watermark | Image / logo watermark |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Type a label, pick a position | Pick a PNG or SVG, set width and position |
| File size impact | Negligible — a few hundred bytes per page | The picture is embedded once and shared by every page; a 50 KB logo adds about 50 KB |
| Looks crisp at any zoom | Yes — text is a vector glyph | Depends on the picture's pixels; an SVG is rasterised at 1024 px on its long side, a PNG keeps its own resolution |
| Transparency | Via Opacity | Via Opacity, plus a PNG's own alpha channel (the logo's background stays see-through) |
| Repeat across the page | No — one label per page | Yes — Tile across the page |
| Print-friendly in greyscale | Yes at the default grey; pick a darker colour for a stronger mark | Depends on logo contrast |
| Searchability of underlying text | Preserved — text is added as a separate content stream | Preserved |
| Use case | DRAFT / CONFIDENTIAL / SAMPLE labels | Brand logo, signature stamp, custom mark |
By default, yes: Apply to is set to All pages, and the same watermark is drawn at the same position, size, opacity and rotation on each. To mark only some pages, select them on the page grid first and choose Selected in the panel.
Yes. Close the Watermark panel, click the page cards you want (shift-click for a range, or use the checkbox on each card), reopen Watermark from the tools rail and choose Selected (n) under Apply to. Pages outside the selection are left untouched. If you need different watermarks on different ranges, run the tool once per range with the right pages selected — undo reverts a pass you don't want.
PNG, JPG, SVG, WebP, GIF, BMP, HEIC, AVIF and TIFF, up to 40 megapixels. A PNG keeps its transparency, so a logo on a transparent background floats over the page content rather than sitting in a white box. An SVG is rasterised at a minimum of 1024 px on its long side; the other formats are converted to PNG or JPEG before they are embedded. Animated GIFs and multi-page TIFFs contribute their first frame or page.
Width sets the logo's width as a percentage of the page width, from 5% to 100% (default 30%); its height follows the picture's own aspect ratio, so nothing is stretched. Tick Tile across the page to repeat the logo in a centred grid with a gap of half a logo between copies — the position grid is ignored while tiling. The picture is embedded in the PDF once and referenced from every page, so tiling or watermarking a long document does not multiply the file size.
Yes — a text or image overlay, including this one, lives in a regular content stream that an editor like Adobe Acrobat, Foxit, or PDFsam can delete. Cleanly removing it usually requires the editor to either rasterise the page (which destroys the searchable text layer) or strip the specific drawing operators. If you need a tamper-evident watermark, the right tool is DRM or AES encryption — not a visible overlay. Watermarks deter casual misuse; they don't enforce it.
Yes. The watermark is drawn as a separate object on top of the original page content using pdf-lib — your underlying text layer is untouched, so Ctrl-F, screen readers, and any existing OCR layer keep working. Selecting body text in the output skips the watermark. This is in contrast to "removing" a watermark from a finished PDF, which usually rasterises the page and breaks search.
Helvetica, in the colour you pick with the Color control (default grey, #888888), at the Size you set (12–120 pt, default 60 pt). Rotation runs from 0° to 360° in 5° steps and turns the label about its own centre, so a rotated watermark stays where the preview shows it; 0° is the default, and 30–45° gives the classic diagonal. Opacity defaults to 40%. The font family is not configurable in this version.
The tool accepts PDFs of up to 100 MB. It warns you above 50 MB or 300 pages, because rendering thumbnails and saving then take noticeably longer on a mid-range laptop, but it still runs. If a file is over the limit, compress the PDF first or extract the pages you need, watermark them, and merge the result back together.
No — the PDF, the watermark image and the saved result all stay in your browser; the page makes no upload. There is no permanent storage, no public gallery, and no account required.
The tool handles one PDF at a time. For a small batch the practical workflow is to keep the page open, run a PDF through, save it, then click the file name to open the next one — the tool resets in under a second. For a recurring batch with the same watermark, scripting with the pdf-lib library directly (Node or browser) is the cleaner option than 50 manual passes.
Watermarking adds visible content on top of every page. Flattening merges form fields into the base page so they can't be edited — it doesn't add anything new. The two are complementary: watermark a contract draft as DRAFT, then once it's signed, flatten the final to lock the fields in place. Both live in this editor: the watermark is in the Watermark panel, and Flatten form fields on save is in Document settings (also at /flatten-pdf).