Watermark PDF online

1. Upload your PDF. Drag it onto the box above, or click to browse. The first page renders instantly as a live preview.
2. Choose text or image. Type a phrase like “CONFIDENTIAL” or “DRAFT”, or upload a PNG/JPG logo to stamp onto every page instead.
3. Tune the look. Adjust font size, color, opacity, rotation, and whether the watermark sits once in the center or tiles repeatedly across the page.
4. Set the page range. Apply the watermark to the whole document or just a subset of pages — useful when only certain sections need marking.
5. Apply and download. Click Apply & download PDF and save watermarked.pdf to your device. No account, no email, no limit.

Many online watermarking tools require you to upload your document to a remote server before they'll touch it. That's a real concern when the file is a signed contract, an unpublished manuscript, a legal filing, or anything else you'd rather not hand to a third party you don't know. This tool avoids that entirely: the PDF is rendered with pdf.js and stamped with pdf-lib directly on your device, so the bytes never leave the tab you're looking at.

• Private by design — no upload, no server-side processing, no logging of your files.
• No file size cap — the only real limit is how much memory your device has available.
• No watermark on the watermark — the output is a clean PDF; we don't brand your document with our own logo.
• Instant live preview — see exactly how the text or image will look before you commit.
• Works offline — once the page has loaded, you can disconnect from the internet and keep using it.

A text watermark is the fastest way to mark a document — type a word or short phrase like “CONFIDENTIAL”, “DRAFT”, “SAMPLE”, or a copyright line, and the tool stamps it onto every selected page using a bold, legible font. You control the size, color, and opacity, so it can be as bold as a security stamp or as subtle as a light gray tint that doesn't interfere with reading.

An image watermark is better when you need branding rather than a warning label — your company logo, a signature graphic, or a copyright badge. Upload a PNG or JPG, and the tool scales it to a percentage of the page width so it looks consistent whether the source PDF is A4, US Letter, or a custom size. PNG files with a transparent background usually look cleanest, since the watermark blends into the page instead of sitting on an opaque box.

Both modes support the same opacity, rotation, and placement controls, so you can switch between a text stamp and a logo without reconfiguring everything from scratch.

Center placement puts a single watermark in the middle of each page. It's the natural choice for a clean, professional look — a company logo on a proposal, a “DRAFT” stamp on a document that's still in review, or a discreet copyright notice on a report you're sharing for feedback.

Tiled placement repeats the watermark in a grid across the entire page — roughly three columns by four rows with this tool. Tiling is the standard approach for anti-copy or anti-leak protection: because the mark appears many times at different positions, it's much harder to crop, redact, or clone out a small section of the page and still end up with an unmarked copy. This is the pattern you'll recognize from confidential legal documents, embargoed press materials, and leaked-document tracing.

As a rule of thumb: use center placement when the goal is branding or a light-touch status label, and use tiling when the goal is deterring unauthorized copying or redistribution.

Opacity controls how much the watermark competes with the underlying content. A high opacity (70–100%) makes the mark impossible to miss — appropriate for a hard “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE” stamp where visibility matters more than readability of the page underneath. A low opacity (10–25%) creates a subtle background tint that identifies the document without getting in the way of the text — the classic look for branded letterhead or a light copyright mark. Most confidentiality and draft watermarks sit somewhere in between, around 25–40%.

Rotation is mostly about convention and legibility. A 45° diagonal watermark reading from bottom-left to top-right is the most recognizable pattern — it's what most people picture when they hear “watermarked document,” and it works well because the diagonal line rarely lines up with horizontal body text, so both remain readable. A 0° (horizontal) watermark reads like a normal heading and suits short logo marks or footer-style stamps. A -45° rotation mirrors the diagonal in the other direction and can help a tiled pattern feel less repetitive when combined with alternating rows.

• Protecting drafts — stamp “DRAFT” across a document that's still being reviewed, so nobody mistakes it for the final version.
• Branding documents — add your company logo to proposals, invoices, and reports before sending them to clients.
• Marking confidential or copyright material — tile a “CONFIDENTIAL” or © stamp across internal reports, unpublished research, or original creative work.
• Legal documents — mark exhibits, discovery documents, or draft agreements so their status is unambiguous at a glance.
• Real estate listings — stamp floor plans and listing PDFs with an agency logo before they circulate publicly.
• Photography & portfolio proofs — add a semi-transparent tiled watermark to proof PDFs so clients can review work without lifting print-ready assets.
• Academic & research papers — mark preprints or working papers as unpublished before sharing with collaborators.
• Sample or trial content — stamp “SAMPLE” on a preview chapter, template, or trial report to distinguish it from the paid version.

• Keep opacity under 40% if the page has dense text — anything higher starts to fight with readability.
• Use a PNG with a transparent background for logo watermarks so there's no visible box around the image.
• Pick a rotation that doesn't align with your body text — a slight diagonal is usually easier to read through than a horizontal stamp over horizontal text.
• If you only need to mark a cover page or an appendix, use the page range fields instead of watermarking the whole document.
• Check the live preview at 100% zoom before applying — small opacity and color differences are easy to miss when scaled down.
• For anti-copy protection, prefer tiling over center placement — a single mark is trivial to crop out.

A watermark is a visible deterrent, not an access control. It doesn't stop someone from opening, copying, or forwarding the file — it just makes clear where the document came from and what its status is, and it makes unauthorized redistribution easier to trace back to a source. If you need to actually restrict who can open or edit a PDF, that's a separate feature (password protection and permissions), typically layered on top of a watermark rather than instead of it. For most everyday cases — drafts, proofs, confidentiality notices, and branding — a watermark alone is exactly the right amount of friction: visible, unambiguous, and impossible to overlook.