Watermark PDF
What Watermark PDF actually does
A watermark is a claim about a document's status that travels with the document. The wording is the whole point, and it changes with the situation: a draft going to a client, a copy that is not for distribution, an internal reference number, a recipient's name on a numbered copy. This page treats all three of those as controls. The wording is yours, the slant is yours, and the strength is yours, because a mark faint enough to read through on a text page is invisible over a dark photograph and a mark heavy enough for the photograph makes the text page unreadable. Page selection is a control too, so a cover sheet can stay clean while the body carries the mark. The mark is drawn against the page as a reader sees it, which means a landscape page or a page carrying a stored rotation gets its wording slanted across what the reader sees rather than across the underlying unrotated box, an error that is easy to miss until a printed proof lands on the desk. The mark becomes part of the page content, so it cannot be switched off by hiding a layer.
How to use it
- Choose the PDF.
- Type the wording. It is drawn exactly as typed, in bold, on one line.
- Set the slant in degrees and the strength, where a low strength is faint and a high one is emphatic.
- Leave the page box empty for the whole document, or name the pages that should carry it.
- Review a page or two in the board and download.
Useful for
- Mark a draft so nobody quotes it as final.
- Send a numbered copy carrying its recipient's name, so a leaked copy identifies itself.
- Label a specimen or sample so it is never mistaken for an executed document.
- Mark the body of a report while leaving the cover clean.
Limits worth knowing
- One line of wording, one mark per page, centered. Tiled repeats across the page are not offered.
- The wording is drawn in a standard bold face. Fonts, images and logos as watermarks are out of scope here.
- It is page content once written, not an annotation and not a layer, so it cannot be removed by turning something off. That is the intent, and it is also not a security control: anyone determined can rebuild the page.
- Very long wording at a large size runs past the edge of a small page. The board shows this before download.
Questions people ask
What strength should I use?
Low enough to read the page through it. Start faint on text-heavy pages and raise it for pages that are mostly images.
Can I put it behind the text instead of over it?
No. It is drawn over the existing content at the strength you choose, and the strength is what keeps it readable.
Will it come out slanted the wrong way on a landscape page?
No. The slant is measured against the page as it is displayed, including any rotation already stored on it.
Does this stop somebody removing it?
No, and no watermark does. It stops accidental circulation of an unmarked copy, which is the job it is good at.