Add text watermarks to every page of your PDF.
Your file stays private. Watermarking happens locally in your browser Γ’β¬β no uploads, no servers. Add text such as 'CONFIDENTIAL' or 'DRAFT' across your document pages.
Add text watermarks to PDF documents online for free. Protect your work by marking pages with text like "CONFIDENTIAL", "DRAFT", "DO NOT COPY", or your company name. Customize opacity, position, and rotation to suit your needs.
All processing happens in your browser using pdf-lib Γ’β¬β no uploads, no servers, complete privacy. Use it for internal documents, legal files, or any PDF you want to mark before sharing.
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Watermarking a PDF is how you make ownership visible without stopping people from reading the document. With a few clicks you can mark every page with your own text, such as CONFIDENTIAL, DRAFT, or a company name. The tool runs locally in your browser, so your file never leaves your device.
The watermark text defaults to CONFIDENTIAL, and you can type anything in its place. It is drawn in a bold font, scaled to roughly one-sixth of the page size, and rendered in red so it stands out against most backgrounds. The text is converted to uppercase automatically, which reads clearly at a glance.
Three controls fine-tune the look. The opacity slider runs from 5% to 80%, letting you go from a faint background mark to a bold overlay. Position choices include center, diagonal, and bottom, and the diagonal placement is rotated to 45 degrees so it spans the page like a classic security mark. A bottom watermark stays horizontal and sits low on the page.
The mark is sized relative to each page, so watermarks stay proportionate even in a document with mixed page sizes. A short label like CONFIDENTIAL reads clearly, while longer text simply fills more of the page without looking cramped.
Think about what the watermark needs to accomplish before you set it. A subtle, low-opacity mark signals ownership without spoiling readability, which suits documents people still need to work with. A loud, high-opacity mark is a deterrent meant to discourage copying of previews and proofs.
Keep the text short. One or two words read best at the scale the tool uses, and a long phrase wrapped across the page can obscure the content underneath. Test once on a low opacity, download the result, and only then adjust if you want it bolder.
The process applies the mark to every page in one pass, so there is no need to repeat the step for a long document.
Pro tip
For text-heavy pages, keep the opacity around 20-30% so the watermark stays visible without making the document harder to read. Reserve higher opacity for image-heavy previews where you actively want the mark to dominate.
Draft documents sent for internal review carry DRAFT so no one mistakes them for final versions. Contracts and financial statements traveling by email are marked CONFIDENTIAL to discourage casual copying. Photographers and designers stamp DO NOT COPY or their studio name on previews before sending proofs to clients.
The same approach works for smaller jobs: an examiner can mark a sample paper, a landlord can label a lease draft, and a team can put its name on shared planning documents. In every case the watermark adds context at a glance without stopping anyone from reading the file.
The tool is free for PDFs up to 10MB, with a short wait for free users and instant processing for Premium subscribers. Because watermarking happens on your own machine, you can mark sensitive documents like contracts and medical records without sending them to an external service.