How to Add a Watermark to a PDF

A watermark stamps text or a logo across every page of a PDF — “DRAFT,” “ CONFIDENTIAL,” a company name, or a copyright notice. It’s a quick way to mark a document’s status or ownership before sharing it, without editing the underlying content at all.

Text watermarks vs. image watermarks

A text watermark is the classic diagonal “CONFIDENTIAL” or “SAMPLE” stamp — good for status markers where the wording matters more than branding. An image watermark places a logo or stamp graphic instead, which is what you want for company branding or an official seal. Both are drawn as a new layer on top of the existing page content, so nothing underneath is altered.

How to add a watermark

1. Upload your PDF to the Watermark tool and choose text or image.
2. For text, type your wording and set the size, color, rotation, and opacity. For an image, upload a PNG or JPG logo and set its size relative to the page.
3. Pick a position — center, a corner, or an edge — and check the live preview.
4. Download once it looks right; the watermark is applied to every page.

Getting the look right

• Opacity below about 30% keeps a watermark visible without making the underlying text hard to read — that’s the sweet spot for most “DRAFT”-style stamps.
• A 45° rotation across the center of the page is the classic diagonal watermark look and reads clearly on both portrait and landscape content.
• Corner placement works better than center for logo watermarks, since it stays out of the way of body text and tables.

Need to number the pages too, not just mark them? The Page numbers tool uses the same position picker and can be applied on top of a watermarked file.

A note on privacy

Watermarking runs entirely in your browser with pdf-lib — including the live preview, which renders locally with pdf.js. Your document and any logo you upload never leave your device.