Have you ever wanted to stamp “DRAFT” on every page of a document you hand off to a co-worker for review and feedback? Or, put “Company Confidential” on each page of the quarterly sales report? Whether you’re trying to stamp each page of your PDF with DRAFT, Confidential, or the company logo, sounds like you want to use a watermark. Watermarks, not to be confused with stamps, are a way to add some text, or an image, to every page. That object, text box or image, will appear behind the text of the document so as not to obscure your ability to read it.
When applying a watermark you can pick an image or text box, rotate it, and really give it a “watermark look” by adding some transparency to it.
Notes and Tips
Watermarks are supported in PDFpen and PDFpenPro 10 and later. If you use an earlier version of PDFpen, the Imprint All Pages script functions similarly, though with fewer controls.
Only one watermark is allowed per page. Different watermarks can be applied to alternating pages using even and odd distribution.
Add a watermark to a document
- Add an image to your document or add a text box containing the text you wish to use on each page.
- From the menu bar choose Edit > Watermark > Convert to Watermark.
- In the following dialog, select your preferences, then choose Apply. Select from an array of options, including:
- Page range: specify a custom page range
- Even / odd pages: apply only to the even pages or only to odd-numbered pages
- Image opacity: make the image semi-transparent
- Rotation: rotate a text box 45° or 90° degrees
Remove a watermark
- Select some pages. To do so, set the Sidebar sidebar button to Thumbnail view and:
- Shift+click to select a range of thumbnails
- Command+click to select non-consecutive thumbnails
- Select a single page and press Command+A to select all pages
- Choose Edit > Watermark > Remove Watermark from Selected Pages.
Edit a watermark
Watermarks cannot be edited directly. First remove the current watermark, then apply a new version.
Have you tried watermarks? How are you using them? Let us know @PDFpen and on Facebook.