Add Watermark to PDF

Add your PDF files to the box above, choose what the watermark should say or show, see it on the preview of page 1, and press Add watermark. You can add watermark to PDF files as plain text, as a ready stamp such as DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL, as a date stamp, or as your own logo.

Everything happens in your browser: when you watermark PDF files here, they are read and changed on your own device and are not uploaded to our server. You can add up to 20 PDFs at once, each up to 300 MB, and every one gets the same watermark. The only exception is a PDF that is locked with a password: to open it, the password and the file are sent to our server once and deleted straight after.

A stamp tells the reader at a glance what kind of copy they are holding. Pick Stamp and tap one of the ten ready words: there is nothing to type and the stamp always gets a border, like a rubber stamp on paper. To watermark PDF with DRAFT, choose DRAFT, keep Diagonal placement and leave the opacity low so the text below stays easy to read.

If you need your own word, choose Text instead, type it, and switch on Stamp border under Look. That gives the same stamp look for words like REVISED, VERIFIED or ORIGINAL.

A PDF stamp with date is the digital version of the received stamp on an office desk. Choose Date stamp, type the text that should come before the date, such as Received, Approved on, Paid or Checked, and the tool adds today's date after it. With Received you get, for example, Received 15 Oct 2026, written in the way dates are shown on your device.

For a neat result, use One place, top right, at about 25 to 35% size and 80 to 100% opacity, and keep Stamp border on. The stamp then sits clear of the letterhead and reads like a real office stamp. If you need the date in a sentence of your own, choose Text and type {date} where the date should go, for example Scanned {date} by Accounts.

Use a PDF stamp with date for incoming invoices, signed forms, applications, delivery notes and letters that you file for later. It shows at a glance when a document came in, which helps with deadlines, payment terms and audits. The date is the day you make the file; it is not a certified time stamp.

To watermark PDF with image files such as your logo, choose Logo / image and pick a PNG or JPG. A PNG with a transparent background is the cleanest choice, because only the logo itself is drawn. A JPG always has a rectangular background, which shows as a pale box on the page.

Logo watermarks are common on brochures, price lists, catalogues, menus, sample reports, design proofs and course handouts. For a quiet brand mark, place the logo in one corner at 15 to 25% size and 20 to 40% opacity. To make reuse of a proof harder, choose Repeated at 10 to 15% size and a low opacity, so the logo covers the whole page without hiding the content.

The logo keeps its own colours; the colour picker only applies to text. If a coloured logo looks too strong, lower the opacity rather than the size. For photos rather than PDFs, use Watermark Image, which works the same way for JPG and PNG pictures.

The Text watermark understands four placeholders that are filled in separately on each page. {page} becomes the page number, {pages} the total number of pages, {date} today's date and {file} the file name without .pdf. They work in any mix with your own words.

Type Page {page} of {pages}, choose One place, bottom centre, at 15 to 20% size and full opacity, and you get simple page numbers on every page. Type {file} · Page {page} to print the file name with the number, which helps when printed copies get mixed up. Type CONFIDENTIAL · {file} · {date} for a copy that shows what it is, where it came from and when it was made.

For page numbers with more control over the style and margins, use Add Page Numbers, which is made only for that job.

Diagonal puts one watermark across the middle of the page, from the bottom-left corner towards the top right. The angle follows the shape of the page, so it is steeper on a tall page and flatter on a wide one, and the watermark is never longer than the page allows. This is the classic look for DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL and SAMPLE.

One place puts a single watermark in one of nine positions: the four corners, the middle of each edge or the centre. A small margin keeps it off the very edge, so it is not cut off when printed. Use it to watermark PDF pages with stamps such as PAID, APPROVED or a date stamp, and for a logo in a corner. You can turn it with the angle slider from -90 to 90 degrees.

Repeated fills the whole page with the watermark in staggered rows, like wallpaper. It is the hardest to crop out or cover, which makes it a good choice for proofs, samples and documents that should not be passed on. Choosing Repeated sets the size to 30% and the angle to 30 degrees; you can change both.

Size is set as a share of the page width, from 5 to 100%, so the watermark looks the same on A4, Letter or a wide page. Opacity runs from 5% (barely visible) to 100% (solid). The colour picker sets the colour of text, stamps and date stamps, and Stamp border adds a rounded frame around them.

Over the content draws the watermark on top of the page. It always shows, also on scanned pages and photos, and at a low opacity the text underneath stays readable. This is the default and the right choice in most cases.

Behind the content puts the watermark underneath the page, so text and lines are drawn over it and stay fully sharp, like a watermark in printed paper. It works on PDFs made from Word, Excel or other programs, where the page is mostly empty. It does not work on scanned pages: a scan is one picture that covers the whole page, so it hides anything behind it. Some designed PDFs also have a white box behind the content, with the same effect. If the preview shows no watermark, switch back to Over.

Under More options you choose which pages get the watermark, so you can watermark PDF reports without marking the cover. All is the default. First only marks just the cover page. All but first leaves the cover clean and marks the rest. Odd and Even are handy for double-sided printing. Choose lets you type pages and ranges such as 1-3, 7, 10-end.

The same box holds the font choice for text watermarks: Sans, Serif or Mono, with Bold on or off. Bold reads better at low opacity, so it is on by default.

You can watermark PDF files in any language and script: English, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic and so on. The text is drawn with the fonts on your device and placed on the page as a sharp, high resolution picture, so there are no missing letters or empty boxes, even in PDFs that do not contain those fonts.

This has one effect you should know: the watermark is not selectable text. It cannot be searched or copied, and a screen reader does not read it out. The text of the PDF itself is not changed and stays selectable and searchable as before.

You can add watermark to PDF free here, with no sign-up, no account and no trial that runs out. There is no limit on how many times you watermark PDF files in a day.

We add nothing of our own. The only watermark in the file is the one you choose: no FlipMyFormat logo, no line of text about where it was made. To add watermark to PDF free online for a whole folder, add up to 20 files at a time and repeat as often as you like.

This is a watermark PDF online free tool that works in any modern browser: Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chromebook, and in the browser on iPhone, iPad and Android. There is nothing to install and no app to download.

Because the work is done on your device, you can add watermark to PDF online without waiting for an upload. You can watermark PDF reports of 200 pages in seconds on a recent computer. On a phone, large files take a little longer and use more memory, so add them a few at a time.

To add watermark to PDF free online on a phone, tap the box, choose the files from Files or your downloads, set the watermark and tap Add watermark. The PDF is saved to your downloads, ready to share.

Many people look for an add watermark to PDF Mac app, but you do not need one. Open this page in Safari, Chrome or Firefox on your Mac to watermark PDF files; it works the same as on any other computer, with the PDF made on your Mac and not uploaded.

Step by step: open the page, click Select PDF files or drag PDFs from Finder onto the box, choose the watermark, check the preview and press Add watermark (or Cmd + Enter). Safari saves the file to your Downloads folder. Open it in Preview to check it.

Preview on a Mac can add text boxes and shapes to a PDF, but it has no real watermark feature: no opacity, no diagonal text, no repeat on every page, no batch. So for add watermark to PDF Mac tasks, the browser is the simpler route.

To watermark PDF free in batches, add up to 20 PDFs at once. Each one gets exactly the same watermark and settings, and each is saved as its own file with -watermarked.pdf at the end of its name, so the original stays untouched. With more than one file, Download all gives you a single ZIP.

Placeholders are filled in for each file: {file} becomes the name of that file and {pages} its own page count. That makes it easy to watermark PDF contracts or reports, each with its own name and numbering, in one go. Pages that are turned sideways (rotated) are handled, so the watermark sits upright as you see the page.

If a PDF is locked with a password, the file list shows Password needed and a password box. Type the password and press Open. To open it, the file and the password are sent to our server once and deleted straight after; everything else still happens in your browser.

The watermarked copy is saved without the password. If it should stay locked, protect it again with Protect PDF after adding the watermark.

A watermark is a clear signal, not a lock. Someone with PDF editing software can find and delete it, just as they can delete any other part of a PDF. If people must not change the document, also protect it with a password using Protect PDF, which can stop editing, copying and printing.

Repeated placement is the hardest to crop away or cover. If the PDF has fillable form fields, Flatten PDF turns the filled-in values into fixed page content, so they cannot be changed in a form reader. Even then, a determined person can rebuild a document, so do not rely on a watermark alone for anything secret.

The watermark text is a picture, so it cannot be searched, copied or read aloud. Behind the content is hidden on scanned pages. The date of a date stamp comes from your device clock. Very large files on a phone may run out of memory; use a computer for those.

When you watermark PDF files here, they are opened, changed and saved in your browser, on your own device. They are not uploaded to our server, and we cannot see them. That makes the tool suitable for contracts, payslips, medical letters and other private documents.

The one exception is a locked PDF: to open it, the file and the password you type are sent to our server once over an encrypted connection and deleted as soon as the file is opened. Your logo is also read only in your browser. No account is needed and nothing is kept.

To watermark PDF pages, the tool reads each file with the same PDF engine that shows the preview, then draws the watermark into every chosen page. Text, stamps and date stamps are first drawn as a sharp transparent picture with the font and colour you chose; a logo is used as it is. The picture is then placed on the page at the position, size, angle and opacity you set.

The page content itself is not touched: text stays selectable, links keep working and the pages are not re-compressed, so the quality is exactly as before. The file grows a little, because the watermark picture is stored once per file, or once per page when you use {page}.

Keep the watermark short. One or two words read well across a page; a full sentence becomes small and hard to read. Put longer text in One place at the bottom instead.

Check the preview before you watermark PDF files with busy pages. The preview shows page 1, so if a later page has a dark photo or a table, look at that page in the downloaded file before you send it.

Name the copy. A CONFIDENTIAL · {file} watermark makes it clear which file a printout or screenshot came from, which helps when the same document goes to several people.

Keep the original. Each time you watermark PDF files, the tool saves a new file, so keep the unmarked PDF in a safe place in case you need a clean copy later.

Once you watermark PDF files, you may want to protect each file with Protect PDF so it cannot be edited, sign it with Sign PDF, or make it smaller for email with Compress PDF. To join several watermarked files into one, use Merge PDF.

If you still need to change the text of the document itself, do that first with Edit PDF and add the watermark last. More tools are listed under PDF Tools.