Add Watermark
Stamp a text or image watermark over your PDF content.
How to use Add Watermark
- Add the PDF you want to mark.
- Choose a text watermark and type the wording, or switch to image and pick a PNG or JPEG.
- Set the position on the nine-point grid, or tick Tile across page to repeat it everywhere.
- Adjust opacity, rotation, size and colour until it reads without obscuring the content.
- Limit the page range if needed, then press Add watermark to download.
How Add Watermark works
A watermark marks a document as a draft, a copy, or yours. This tool stamps either text or an image across your pages, with enough control to make it legible without burying the content underneath.
Text watermarks take any wording, with font size, colour, opacity and rotation as separate controls. The classic diagonal "CONFIDENTIAL" is 45° at low opacity, which is the default, but a small horizontal line in a corner is often more practical. Image watermarks accept PNG or JPEG — PNG with transparency gives the cleanest result for a logo — and are sized as a percentage of the page width so they scale correctly across mixed page sizes.
Position uses the same nine-point grid as page numbers, or you can tile the mark across the entire page, which is much harder to crop out of a screenshot. The From and To fields limit which pages are stamped.
The mark is drawn over the existing page content. Placing it behind that content is not something the browser PDF library supports, so that option is not offered rather than shipped as a switch that does nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. This tool runs entirely inside your browser — the file is read from disk by the page and never transmitted. It keeps working even if you disconnect after the page has loaded.
Can I put the watermark behind the text instead of over it?
No. The PDF library this runs on appends drawing operations to the end of the page content stream, which always paints on top. Rather than offer a control that silently does nothing, the option is left out and the tool says so on the page. Low opacity is the practical substitute — at 25% the content below stays perfectly readable.
Why are only PNG and JPEG accepted for image watermarks?
Those are the only two image formats a PDF can embed directly. Anything else would have to be re-encoded first. If you have a WEBP or HEIC logo, run it through Convert Image to make a PNG, then come back.
Does the watermark stop someone removing it?
No, and no watermark does. It is drawn into the page content, so removing it requires editing software and effort, but it is not encryption or protection. Treat it as a visible label of status or ownership, not a security control.
What should I set opacity to?
Around 20–30% is the usual range for a large diagonal mark: clearly visible, but the text underneath stays readable. A small corner mark can go higher, 50% or more, since it covers little. Tiled marks should stay low — repetition makes them prominent even when faint.
Does it work with non-Latin text?
Not currently. The watermark is drawn with a standard PDF font that covers Latin characters and common punctuation only, so Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic and similar scripts cannot be rendered. An image watermark is the way round this — render your text as a PNG and use that instead.