Add a watermark to a PDF
Type a word, choose how faint it should be, and get back a PDF with that text tiled diagonally across every page. The document is rewritten inside your browser — nothing is uploaded to a server, and the original file on your disk is left untouched.
Drop your PDF here
The document's text layer is kept intact.
How to add a watermark to a PDF
- Drop your PDF onto the page or click “Choose file” — it opens instantly, straight from your disk.
- Type the watermark text (DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, a client name, a date) and drag the slider to set how faint it should be.
- Click “Add watermark”, then download the new PDF. Every page comes back stamped, and the text layer of the document is preserved.
What DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL and SAMPLE actually do
A watermark is a label, and in one narrow but real sense it carries weight: it records what the sender intended. A page marked DRAFT is evidence that the version was not presented as final terms, which matters when somebody later argues that an early exchange was the agreement. CONFIDENTIAL works the same way — it is the marking that confidentiality agreements and trade-secret practice generally expect you to apply before you can claim the recipient was put on notice.
SAMPLE and SPECIMEN mark a document meant to be looked at rather than used: a filled-in form for training, a portfolio piece, a price list sent to a lead. COPY and VOID keep a printout from being mistaken for an original. None of these words are magic, and context decides everything in a dispute — but an unmarked document gives you nothing at all to point at, and marking one costs about thirty seconds. If your employer or your client has a policy that names exact labels, use their exact wording rather than an approximation of it.
Choosing the text and the opacity
The text is tiled at 45 degrees across the whole page and scaled to the page size, so a short phrase reads clearly while a long sentence turns into visual noise. One to three words is the sweet spot: DRAFT, NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, a client name, a date, an internal case number. Opacity runs from 5% to 60%, and the setting matters more than people expect:
Whatever you pick, open the downloaded file and look at a dense page and a mostly-empty one before you send it. A mark that reads perfectly over a title page can swallow a table.
- 5–10% — barely there. The page still prints cleanly and the mark survives a screenshot. Use it on documents people actually have to sit and read.
- 15% — the default, and what most people want: obvious at a glance, never in the way of the text underneath.
- 25–40% — hard to ignore and hard to crop out. Right for sample portfolios, unpaid invoices and preview copies.
- 50–60% — deliberately intrusive. It makes the document unpleasant to read, which is occasionally the whole point.
Honest about it: a watermark is a label, not a lock
The mark is drawn as a normal layer on top of the page. That means someone with the right software can strip it out, and anyone at all can photograph the screen. This is true of every visible watermark, from every tool and every website — there is no version of it that survives a determined person. Treating a watermark as protection is exactly how confidential files end up circulating. What it buys you is friction and attribution: a recipient forwarding your page has to first decide to remove your name from it, and that is a different act from passing something along without thinking. If the content genuinely must not spread, send fewer pages or do not send the file.
A watermark is also not a signature — to put a real signature or a stamp image on a page, use sign PDF instead. It pairs naturally with pagination, though: marking a circulating draft and numbering its pages lets reviewers say “page 7 of the draft” without ambiguity. And if only part of a document needs the mark, split the PDF first, watermark the piece, and put the file back together afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes — free, with no sign-up, no page limit and no trial. We do not add a watermark of our own to the output either: the only text on the pages is the text you typed.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The PDF is rewritten by JavaScript inside this browser tab, so the document never leaves your computer. That is what makes it safe to use on contracts, medical records and anything else you would not paste into a random website.
Can I remove or change the watermark later?
Not from the stamped file — once saved, the mark is part of the page content. Keep your original: to change the wording or the opacity, run the original through the tool again with different settings. Watermarking an already-watermarked file simply adds a second layer of text.
How many pages can it handle?
Every page of the document gets marked, and the limit is your device's memory rather than a server quota. Reports of a few hundred pages are routine on an ordinary laptop; very large scanned files just take a few seconds longer.
Does the text stay selectable and searchable?
Yes. The document's own text layer is preserved — the watermark is drawn on top as its own text rather than flattening the page into an image, so search, copy and text extraction keep working.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, in Safari on iPhone and Chrome on Android. Everything is processed on the device, so a very large file depends on how much memory your phone has free.
Can I watermark a batch of files at once?
One file at a time. A practical trick for a batch: combine the documents into a single PDF, watermark it in one pass, then split it back into separate files — the mark is applied to every page either way.