Edit & compose · guide
What Watermark PDF does
Watermark PDF stamps a line of text, such as DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL, diagonally across the middle of every page in translucent red, so the page stays readable underneath. Text in any script works, from 社外秘 to ЧЕРНОВИК, and the mark adds very little to the file size, even on a long document. The document is marked in your browser and never uploaded.
How to watermark PDF in your browser
- Choose one PDF Select the PDF to mark. It opens in this browser tab and is not uploaded.
- Type the watermark Enter the words, such as DRAFT. The thumbnails show roughly where the mark will sit; they show it in capitals whatever you type, while the saved file keeps your own capitalisation.
- Add the watermark and save Select Add watermark, check the mark against both light and dark parts of the pages, then save the new PDF.
Worked example
Mark a review copy as DRAFT without obscuring its text.
- Starting point
- Choose the draft PDF. The current Watermark tool applies text to every page.
- What to do
- Enter DRAFT in Watermark text and create the result. The mark is drawn diagonally at a preset low opacity.
- Result
- Expect a marked copy. Open a light page and a dark image page separately to check whether the mark and body text are readable.
If the result is not right
If the preset is unsuitable for your pages, keep the unmarked original and use Edit for manually placed objects. This Watermark view does not expose opacity, angle or logo controls.
Limits worth knowing
- A watermark communicates status; it does not prevent copying or establish ownership.
Questions and answers
Can I change the colour, size, angle or position of the watermark?
Not on this page: the look is fixed, so the result is predictable. The text is drawn in bold red at 22% opacity, turned 35 degrees, sized to 60% of the page width and centred on every page, on top of the page content. That holds for an ordinary upright page. On a landscape page that is stored upright and turned for display, the mark comes out at a different angle and size, and on a page cropped smaller than its full sheet it is centred on the sheet, so part or most of it can fall outside the visible page. Check those pages before you share the file. For a mark in another colour, at another angle or behind the content, design it as a one-page PDF and add it with Overlay PDF, which places it against the visible page.
Can someone remove a watermark from a PDF?
With effort, yes. A watermark is drawn into each page, so it survives copying, printing and screenshots, but someone determined, with a PDF editor, can cover or remove it. It marks a document's status and discourages casual reuse; it is not a security control. For that, use Protect PDF, or Redact PDF for text that must not be seen.
Can I watermark in languages other than English?
Yes. Text the standard PDF fonts cannot encode, such as Japanese, Russian or Hindi, is drawn with your device's own fonts as a picture, so a mark like 社外秘 or ЧЕРНОВИК shows the characters you typed. The picture is drawn at a fixed size and then stretched to the width of the mark, so the shorter the mark, the softer it looks: a one- or two-character mark is visibly soft, and a longer one can still look soft when zoomed in or printed. Because it is a picture, a mark in those scripts cannot be found by searching the PDF. A few symbols, such as → and ≥, are not drawn as a picture when the rest of the mark is plain: they are saved as a question mark.
Can I watermark only some pages?
Not in one step: every page gets the mark. To mark part of a document, cut it into parts with Split PDF, watermark the part that needs it, then put the parts back in order with Merge PDF.
Will the watermark show up when someone searches or copies the text?
A watermark in English or Western European letters will. It is real text drawn over the page, so a search for DRAFT finds it on every page, and copying the page text or converting the PDF to Word can pick up the word along with the document's own text. A mark that contains a letter outside that set, such as Czech Ů, Polish Ł or Turkish İ, or any other script, is drawn as a single picture and is skipped by both.