Add Watermark to PDF
Stamp any text onto your PDF pages. Control opacity, size, color, rotation, and placement. Apply to all pages or just the first.
Click or drag a PDF here
How to use Add Watermark to PDF
Add a text or image watermark to every page of a PDF document — entirely client-side with no file uploads. Protect confidential documents, brand your reports, mark drafts as "Confidential" or "Draft", or add copyright notices. Customize font size, opacity, rotation angle, and position to suit your needs.
- Upload the PDF you want to watermark.
- Choose watermark type: text (enter your text) or image (upload a logo or stamp).
- Set font size, opacity (0–100%), and rotation angle for text watermarks.
- Choose watermark position: center, tile, or corner.
- Click "Add Watermark" and download the protected PDF.
Your data never leaves your device — 100% private processing.
Text vs. image watermarks
Text watermarks are ideal for labels like "CONFIDENTIAL", "DRAFT", "COPY", or copyright notices. They are scalable, resolution-independent, and remain crisp at any zoom level. Image watermarks (logos, stamps, seals) are better for branded documents such as official reports, certificates, or letterheads. For maximum authority, use an image watermark of a notarized seal or corporate logo alongside a text label.
| Type | Best for | Opacity guideline |
|---|---|---|
| Text — DRAFT | Work-in-progress documents | 20–40% |
| Text — CONFIDENTIAL | Internal distribution control | 25–35% |
| Text — COPY | Distributed document control | 20–30% |
| Image — logo | Branded reports, certificates | 15–25% |
| Image — stamp/seal | Official approvals, awards | 60–80% |
Opacity and positioning best practices
An opacity of 15–30% places the watermark visibly in the background without obscuring the main content, which is the standard for "draft" and "confidential" labels. For certificate stamps meant to be prominent, 60–80% opacity is common. Diagonal placement at 45° makes watermarks harder to crop out while still allowing the underlying content to be read. Tiled watermarks (repeating across the page) provide the strongest protection against cropping attempts.
Glossary
- Opacity
- A value from 0% (fully transparent) to 100% (fully opaque) controlling how visible a watermark appears over the page content.
- Content stream overlay
- The PDF mechanism that places watermark graphics on top of (or beneath) existing page content.
- Tiling
- Repeating a watermark pattern across the entire page surface to prevent easy removal by cropping.
- Stamp
- A predefined PDF annotation or overlay that adds a visual mark (APPROVED, DRAFT, VOID) to a document.
Related reading
Frequently Asked Questions
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Why use Add Watermark to PDF?
- Process files entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded to any server
- Works on any device: desktop, tablet, or mobile
- No watermarks, no account required, completely free
- Handles multi-page PDFs without file size penalties
Common use cases
- Merge contracts before emailing to a client
- Split a large PDF report into separate deliverables
- Compress PDFs before attaching to email
- Remove a password from a personal PDF document
- Convert scanned images into searchable PDFs
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