Add a watermark to a PDF
Put a diagonal or horizontal mark across every page, with the wording, angle and strength you choose.
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Select a PDF file
or drag and drop here
Accepted formats: PDF
Processing…
Quick facts
- What it does
- Stamps text or an image across every page, at a position, angle and opacity you set.
- Input
- Output
- Processing
- In your browser
- Files uploaded?
- No
- Account required?
- No
- Best for
- Marking a document as a draft, a copy, or confidential before circulating it.
- Main limitation
- A watermark drawn on the page can be removed by anyone with a PDF editor; it marks a document, it does not protect one.
How to use this tool
- Upload your PDF.
- Type the watermark text and pick its angle, size and opacity.
- Choose whether it sits behind or in front of the page content.
- Download the watermarked file.
Why use iBuildPDF
A watermark is a statement about status — this is a draft, this copy is not for circulation, this belongs to us. It is worth being able to add one without a subscription and without uploading the document it is meant to protect.
How it works
The text is drawn onto each page as a new content layer using the document's own coordinate system. The existing page content is left exactly as it was, so removing the watermark later is just a matter of going back to your original.
Frequently asked questions
Can someone remove the watermark?
Yes, with the right software — a drawn watermark is a layer, not encryption. If the mark must be unremovable, run the result through Flatten PDF, which bakes it into the page image. Nothing labelled "watermark" on any site is a security control.
Can I use my logo instead of text?
Not in this tool yet — it does text only. To place an image on a page today, use the PDF editor, which supports dragging an image onto a page.
Does it work on scanned documents?
Yes. The watermark is drawn over whatever is on the page, whether that is live text or a scanned image.
Can I remove a watermark I added by mistake?
Not from the watermarked file. Once stamped and downloaded, the text is part of the page content, so there is no undo and no removal step. You would need to start again from the original. This is worth knowing before you overwrite your only copy — watermark a duplicate and keep the clean version.
Can I watermark only some pages?
The watermark is applied to every page in one pass. If you need it on only part of the document, split the PDF first, watermark just that section, then merge the watermarked and untouched parts back together — all three tools are on this site and none of them upload your file. It is a few more clicks, but it works.
What can I change about how the watermark looks?
You control the text itself, its size, its opacity and the angle it sits at, which is what produces the usual diagonal DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL stamp. The colour is a fixed neutral grey chosen to stay legible over both white space and dark images without obscuring the text underneath. This is a text watermark, so you cannot stamp a logo image with it.
Read more about this
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