How to Add a Text or Logo Watermark to Every Page of a PDF

Here's the actual process for stamping a watermark onto a PDF with PDF watermark, from picking text or a logo through to the downloaded file.

Step 1 - drop the PDF

Choose or drag in the PDF, up to 80 MB. A thumbnail of page 1 appears immediately, and that's the page the live preview updates on as you adjust the watermark below.

Step 2 - pick text or a logo

Two modes, switched with a toggle at the top of the options. Text mode starts pre-filled with "CONFIDENTIAL" so there's something real to see immediately - type over it with whatever word or short phrase actually applies, set its size, and pick a color. Image mode takes a logo as a PNG, WebP, or JPEG and lets you set how large it renders as a percentage of the page.

Step 3 - position, opacity, rotation

A 3x3 position grid places the mark at any of the nine standard spots - corners, edge centers, or dead center - and a Tile checkbox repeats it across the whole page instead of stamping once, useful when a single mark in a corner is too easy to crop out of a screenshot. Opacity runs 0 to 100%; low enough not to obscure the underlying text, but the tool will warn you plainly if you drag it all the way to 0, since an invisible watermark defeats the entire point. Rotation runs -90 to 90 degrees - the classic diagonal "DRAFT" look is a rotation around -45.

Step 4 - watch the live preview, then commit

Every change to text, logo, position, opacity, or rotation redraws the page-1 preview immediately, so you see the actual placement before spending a moment applying it to every page. The preview is a close approximation, not a pixel-exact copy of the final output - it uses the browser's own canvas drawing to render fast, while the real stamping happens in a separate step using the same PDF library that builds the download. Once it looks right, click the Watermark button - it says how many pages it will mark - and the mark is applied in one pass, then the finished PDF downloads.

Optional: mark only some of the pages

By default every page gets the mark. To leave a cover clean, or to mark a single exhibit inside a larger bundle, type the pages into Pages to watermark - for example 2-12, or 1-3, 7, 10-, where 10- means page 10 to the last page. The page tiles say "No mark" on every page that will stay as it is, and the button counts the pages it will mark. Pages you don't list come through untouched.

Text in Arabic, Chinese or any other script

Latin text - accented letters, numbers and common punctuation included - is written into the PDF as real text, so it can be selected and searched. Any other script, Arabic and Chinese included, is drawn by your browser and stamped as a picture: it looks right, in the right direction, but it can't be selected. A logo image works the same way for anything a font can't draw.

Two settings worth double-checking before you commit

The two most common first-try mistakes are both visible in the preview if you look for them. Opacity dragged too high makes the watermark fight with the actual content underneath it - readable text starts to compete with the stamp for attention, which usually isn't the intent. And a text color close to the page background can render nearly invisible on a light page, or a logo with a lot of white space can blend into the margins depending on position. Neither is a bug; both are exactly why the live preview redraws on every change instead of only showing the result after the fact - it's meant to be checked before committing, not corrected after downloading.

Nothing here goes to a server

The PDF you drop, the logo you upload, and the finished stamped file all stay inside the browser tab from start to finish - there's no upload step to describe because there isn't one. Files over 80 MB are refused by the tool itself before anything is read, a limit set to stay inside your browser's memory, not a server-side cap.

For the reasoning behind watermarking a draft in the first place, see the background. To decide between a text mark and a logo, this comparison covers both. Or add a watermark now.