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Add backgrounds to PDFs

Before you begin

We're rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, select help for your current experience.

In the new experience, the tools appear on the left side of the screen.

A background appears behind text or images on the page. The background can be as simple as a solid color, or you can use an image. You can selectively apply a background to only specific pages or page ranges in one or more PDFs. A PDF supports only one background per page, but the backgrounds can vary from page to page.

Before and after adding a background
Before and after adding a background

Add, replace, or edit a background

  1. Open the PDF file to which you want to add the background.

  2. Select Edit from the global bar in the upper left. The Edit toolset appears in the left pane.

  3. In the Edit panel, Under ADD CONTENT select More, and then select Background > Add.

  4. (Optional) To apply the background selectively to individual pages, select Page Range Options in the top right corner of the dialog box. Then, specify a page range and choose a Subset option, as needed.

  5. Specify the Source, Appearance, and Position of the background and select OK

  6. (Optional) To apply the same background to additional PDFs:

    1. Select Apply To Multiple Files.
    2. Select Add Files, choose Add Files or Add Open Files, and then select the files.
    3. Select OK.
    4. In the Output Options dialog box, specify your folder and filename preferences and select OK.

Change settings when you add background

You can change the Source, Appearance, and Position while adding a background to a PDF. You can also reuse Saved Settings if present.

  1. Select Edit from the global bar in the upper left. The Edit toolset appears in the left pane.

  2. In the Edit panel, Under ADD CONTENT select More, and then select Background > Add.

  3. You can now specify the Source, Appearance, and Position. You can also reuse saved settings from a previous session.

    • To reuse a background and background option that you saved in an earlier session, select it from the Saved Settings menu.

    • To apply a solid color background, select From Color. Then, select a color swatch or custom color from the color picker .

    • To use an image, select File, then select the image file. To select a specific image in a multipage file, enter it in Page Number.

    Note:

    Only PDF, JPEG, and BMP files can be used as background images.

Update a recently edited background image

If the original image file that you are using as a background change, you can update the PDF to show the new version of the image rather than removing the old version and readding the new one.

  1. Open the PDF file to that contains the background you want to update.

  2. Choose the Edit tool from the global bar. The Edit PDF toolset is displayed in the left pane.

  3. Select Background > Update.

  4. Select OK, or make other changes to the background options and then select OK.

Note:

This process applies only to backgrounds added in Acrobat 7.0 or later.

Remove a background from selected pages

  1. Open the PDF containing the background.

  2. Choose the Edit tool from the global bar. The Edit PDF toolset is displayed in the left pane.

  3. Select Background > Remove.

  4. Select Yes to confirm the background removal.

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