💧 PDF300
Put a text watermark on a PDF
You are sending a file out but it is not final, or it is not meant to travel further. A word across each page says so before anyone reads a line.
Open the toolRuns entirely in your browser. The file never leaves your device.
How it works
- Add the PDFDrop the file onto the page.
- Type the wordsDRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, a name, a date. Set how dark and how slanted.
- DownloadSave the watermarked copy. Your original stays as it was.
Questions
No. This tool runs in your browser with JavaScript, so the file never leaves your device. Once the page has loaded you can even go offline and it still works.
Neither. No account, no watermark on the output. The practical limit is your device memory — large scanned files use more of it.
Guide: watermarking well
When you'd use this
A contract that is still being negotiated, a report circulated for comment before it is final, a sample sent to a client before payment — in each case the file has to go out, but it should be obvious at a glance that this copy is not the finished version. A diagonal word across every page does that more reliably than a note in the email, because the warning travels with the file wherever it is forwarded, printed or saved.
Setting it up
Besides the text itself, four settings shape how the watermark reads: size controls how large the letters are relative to the page; opacity (as a percentage) controls how much it interferes with reading the page underneath — low values are a subtle reminder, high values are closer to a stamp that cannot be ignored; colour is open, though grey or a light colour at moderate opacity tends to stay legible without overwhelming the page; and angle sets the slant, with a diagonal (commonly 45°) being the traditional look because it crosses lines of body text rather than running parallel to them, which is part of why it stays visible even over dense paragraphs.
What it is for, and what it is not
This is a visible, repeated text stamp — good for signalling status ("DRAFT", "CONFIDENTIAL", a reviewer's name and date) and for discouraging casual redistribution, since removing a watermark from every page of a PDF takes real effort. It is not a security measure: it does not encrypt the file or stop anyone who is determined from stripping it out. If the goal is to stop the file from being opened at all without a password, use Password Protect instead, and use the two together when both a visible marker and real access control are needed.
More questions
No — the text is fixed at the moment you create the watermark. Type the date you want directly into the text field.
Yes, since it is drawn into the page itself rather than added as an on-screen-only annotation. It appears in print exactly as it appears on screen.
Not in this tool directly — it applies to the whole document. Split the file first with Split if only part of it needs marking.
This tool is text-only. For placing an image — a logo or a stamp — use Sign a PDF, which places any PNG at a position and size you choose.