User Guide Cancel

Add watermarks to PDFs

Search
  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. What's new in Acrobat
    3. Keyboard shortcuts
    4. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
    12. PDFs converted to web pages
    13. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    14. PDF articles
    15. Geospatial PDFs
    16. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    17. Change the default font for adding text
    18. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to JPG
    4. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    5. File format options for PDF export
    6. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

A watermark is text or an image that appears either in front of or behind existing document content, like a stamp. For example, you could apply a “Confidential” watermark to pages with sensitive information. You can add multiple watermarks to one or more PDFs, but you must add each watermark separately. You can specify the page or range of pages on which each watermark appears.

Note:

Unlike a stamp, a watermark is integrated into PDF pages as a fixed element. A stamp is a type of PDF comment, which others reading the PDF can open to display a text annotation, move, change, or delete.

Before and After adding a Watermark in Acrobat
Before and after adding a watermark

Add or replace a watermark, with an open document

  1. Choose Tools > Edit PDF > Watermark > Add.

  2. (Optional) To apply the watermark selectively to individual pages, click Page Range Options. Then specify a page range and choose a Subset option, as needed.

  3. Specify the watermark:

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

    • To create a text watermark, select Text, and type the text in the box. Adjust the text formatting options as needed.

    • To use an image as a watermark, select File. Then click Browse and select the image file. If the file has multiple pages with images, specify the Page Number you want.

    Note:

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

  4. To change the size of an image watermark, do one of the following:

    • To resize the watermark in relation to the original image file size, enter a percentage in the Absolute Scale option (in the Source area of the dialog box).

    • To resize the watermark in relation to the PDF page dimensions, enter a percentage in the Scale Relative To Target Page (in the Appearance area of the dialog box).

  5. Adjust the appearance and position of the watermark, as needed.

  6. (Optional) Click Appearance Options and specify the following options:

    • To specify when the watermark appears, select or deselect Show When Printing and Show When Displaying On Screen.

    • To control variations in a PDF with pages of varying sizes, select or deselect Keep Position And Size Of Watermark Text Constant When Printing On Different Page Sizes.

  7. (Optional) To apply the same settings to additional PDFs, click Apply To Multiple Files. Click Add Files, choose Add Files or Add Open Files, and then select the files. Then in the Output Options dialog box, specify your folder and filename preferences, and click OK.

Add or replace a watermark, with no document open (Windows only)

  1. Choose Tools > Edit PDF > Watermark > Add.

  2. In the dialog box, click Add Files, choose Add Files, and then select the files.

    Note:

    You can also add files or folders by dragging them into the dialog box.

  3. Click OK to close the Add Watermark dialog box.

  4. Follow steps 2 through 6 in the procedure for adding or replacing a watermark with a document open. When you have finished setting up your watermark, click OK.

  5. In the Output Options dialog box, specify your folder and filename preferences and click OK.

Add or replace a watermark in component PDFs in a PDF Portfolio

  1. Select one or more component PDFs in a PDF Portfolio.
  2. Follow the steps in the procedure for adding or replacing a watermark with a document open.

Update a watermark

  1. Open a single PDF.

  2. Choose Tools > Edit PDF > Watermark > Update.

  3. Make changes to the watermark, and then click OK.

Note:

If you have multiple watermarks in a PDF, this procedure will update only the first watermark you added and will discard all other watermarks. If you change your mind about updating the watermarks after you have completed this process, immediately choose Edit > Undo Watermark.

Remove watermarks

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Open a single PDF, or select one or more component PDFs in a PDF Portfolio. Then choose Tools > Edit PDF > Watermark > Remove.

    • To remove watermarks from multiple PDFs, close any open PDFs and choose Tools > Edit PDF > Watermark > Remove. In the dialog box that appears, click Add Files, choose Add Files, and then select the files. Click OK, and then in the Output Options dialog box, specify your folder and filename preferences.

Adobe logo

Sign in to your account

Quick links

View all your plans Manage your plans

Legal Notices    |    Online Privacy Policy