Add a watermark to a PDF

Choose a PDF of up to 25 MB and 100 pages. The first page appears in the preview, and a page selector lets you check any other page before you generate. Enter the text you want repeated, or select the logo layer and choose a PNG with a transparent background. The controls are the same as in the image tools: font, color, size, opacity, angle, tiled or single placement, and dragging for single placement.

The text accepts variables. {filename} inserts the document name without its extension, {date} the current UTC date, and {year} the current year. Generate the result when the preview looks right. The output keeps the page size of the original, so A4 stays A4 and landscape pages stay landscape.

Every page is rendered to a bitmap at up to 150 dots per inch, the watermark is drawn onto that bitmap, and the bitmap is stored in the new PDF as a JPEG. The visible result matches the preview, but the text of the original is no longer selectable or searchable, links and form fields stop working, and the file can be larger than the source. Very large page formats are rendered below 150 dpi so that one page never needs more than about 36 megapixels.

Because the watermark becomes part of the page image, a PDF editor cannot switch it off or delete it the way it can remove an overlay. That suits copies that should not be reused and does not suit documents that must stay editable, so keep the original file if you need the editable version later.

A scanned ID card or passport saved as a PDF can be marked with the recipient, the purpose, and the date. The ID card watermark tool does the same for a JPG or HEIC photo, and the guide on what to write on an ID copy explains the wording.

Contract drafts, quotations, and reports can carry a draft or confidential line so that an early version is not mistaken for the final one. Portfolio samples, slides, and teaching material can carry a name or a logo on every page before they are shared for review.

The PDF is parsed and rendered by the open-source pdf.js engine running inside your browser, and the watermark is drawn by the same code that handles images on this site. The fonts, character maps, and decoders the engine may need are served from this site, so no part of the document is sent anywhere. The privacy policy describes what the site does and does not collect.

One PDF at a time, up to 25 MB and 100 pages. A PDF that needs a password to open is rejected; remove the password first. Fonts that are not embedded in the file are drawn with a substitute font, so the rendering can differ slightly from your viewer. Filled form fields and annotations are drawn as they appear; XFA forms are not supported. Damaged files and files that are not PDFs produce an error instead of an output.