Mark a document as a draft or a copy
Type your text, choose the angle, choose how strong it should be. It is applied to every page, sized to fit whatever page it lands on.
The honest part: this is not security
A watermark is text drawn on the page. It is not encryption, it is not a lock, and it does not stop anyone doing anything. Software that removes watermarks is freely available and takes seconds to use.
What it is good for:
- Marking a document unmistakably as DRAFT so nobody acts on the wrong version
- Discouraging casual reuse of a sample, a proof or a preview
- Labelling a copy with who received it
What it is not good for: anything you could not afford to have copied. If that is the situation, the file should not be leaving your control at all, and no watermark changes that.
Plenty of tools sell watermarking as protection. It is not, and saying so seems more useful than the alternative.
The text scales to the page
The size is worked out from each page's own dimensions rather than being a fixed number of points. On a diagonal it is measured against the page's corner-to-corner distance, so it fills the page consistently whether that page is a receipt or a large drawing.
Fixed-size watermarks are why so many watermarked PDFs look wrong — a 60pt stamp that suits A4 is invisible on a large sheet and overflows a small one.
Practical notes
- Faint is usually right. A watermark that fights the text makes the document harder to read, which defeats the point of sending it.
- Apply it last, after merging and numbering, so every page gets marked.
- Keep your original — you will want the clean version later.