Watermark PDF
LocalAdd a text watermark to every PDF page
Drag & drop files here or click to browse
PDF • Max 100 MB
Files are processed in your browser and never uploaded
Privacy First
Your files are processed entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to any server.
How do I add a watermark to a PDF?
Open the PDF, type your watermark text, then set its opacity, rotation, and position. The text is drawn on every page in large bold red type — by default diagonally across the centre — and the modified PDF downloads straight away. The default text is CONFIDENTIAL. The document is edited in your browser and is never uploaded.
About the Watermark PDF
Add text watermarks to PDF pages. Useful for draft markings, confidentiality notices, review copies, and lightweight document branding.
- Mark draft PDFs before review.
- Add confidential notices before sharing documents.
- Brand internal PDFs with a visible text watermark.
How to use the Watermark PDF tool
- 1
Upload PDF file
Select PDF file from your device or drag file into the upload area.
- 2
Choose settings
Choose settings such as Watermark Text, Opacity, Rotation before processing.
- 3
Add Watermark
Run the Watermark PDF tool to create the PDF output.
- 4
Download the result
Download the finished file. The original file stays on your device and is not uploaded.
What exactly does the watermark look like?
Large bold text in a dark red, drawn at the position you choose with the opacity and rotation you set. The default is a diagonal mark across the centre of the page, which is the convention for draft and confidentiality stamps because it is unmissable without hiding the content underneath. Low opacity keeps the page readable and the mark obvious; higher opacity is for copies you actively do not want reused. Rotation runs from diagonal to horizontal, so a corner status label is equally possible.
Can the recipient remove the watermark?
Be realistic about this. The text is drawn into the page content rather than added as an annotation, so it cannot be switched off with a checkbox in a viewer and it survives printing, screenshots, and most conversions. It is not encryption, though: anyone determined and equipped can edit a PDF. A watermark is there to make status unambiguous and casual reuse awkward — to stop a draft being mistaken for a final, not to enforce a licence.
What should the watermark say?
Something that answers a question the reader would otherwise get wrong. DRAFT and NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION prevent the most expensive mistake, which is a work-in-progress being treated as final. CONFIDENTIAL sets handling expectations. A recipient’s name or an issue date makes an individual copy traceable and discourages onward forwarding. SPECIMEN or SAMPLE stops a template being filed as a real record. Keep it short: long text at this size will not fit across a page legibly.
Are my files uploaded when adding a watermark to a PDF?
No. It is worth pausing on how strange the alternative is: the reason you are stamping a document CONFIDENTIAL is that it should not circulate, and an upload-based watermarking service circulates it as step one. Here the text is drawn onto the pages by code in your browser and the stamped file is saved locally, so the document never leaves your control to be marked as controlled.
How to do this offline, on the command line
Stamping one PDF onto another is the portable way to watermark without a rasterizing step.
qpdf
macOS: brew install qpdf · Debian/Ubuntu: apt install qpdf
qpdf report.pdf --overlay stamp.pdf -- stamped.pdfstamp.pdf is a one-page PDF containing just the watermark. Use --underlay instead to put it behind the content.
Frequently Asked Questions
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