Add a Watermark to Your PDF

Yes, completely free. Our Add Watermark tool has no hidden costs, no watermarks, and no registration requirement. You can process as many files as you need, each up to 100MB, at no charge. We believe professional PDF tools should be accessible to everyone — students, freelancers, and businesses alike.

Your files are fully protected. All uploads and downloads use 256-bit SSL/TLS encryption during transfer. Processing happens on our isolated Hetzner server infrastructure in Germany — your file is never shared, analysed for commercial purposes, or stored longer than necessary. Every uploaded and processed file is automatically and permanently deleted within 24 hours of processing.

Supported file types: This tool accepts PDF files up to 100MB each. If your file is larger, reduce it before uploading — for PDFs you can try our Compress PDF tool, which accepts files up to 100MB.

Yes — works on any device. The interface is fully responsive and tested on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Touch-friendly upload areas, drag-and-drop support on desktop, and mobile-optimised buttons mean you get the same experience whether you are on a MacBook, an iPad, or an Android phone. No app download is ever required — open your browser and go.

Yes — opacity is fully adjustable from 10% to 100%. A 15-20% opacity creates a barely visible ghost watermark that protects content without obscuring text. 40-60% is typical for "Confidential" or "Draft" labels that must be noticed. 100% creates a fully solid, opaque watermark. Combine low opacity with a 45° diagonal rotation for the classic diagonal watermark appearance seen on legal and financial documents.

Set the text to DRAFT, turn the opacity well down, and run it diagonally across the page. At a low setting the word reads clearly as a status marker while the paragraph underneath stays perfectly legible, which is the balance you want for something a client is going to actually read. Save the heavier, more solid settings for a document that must not be mistaken for final under any circumstances. A diagonal angle also survives partial printing better than a horizontal band, which can fall entirely inside a margin.

The mark is drawn onto the page in sequence, so on a page whose image was placed last the picture can end up sitting over the top of it. Text-heavy pages show the watermark and image-heavy ones swallow it. Raising the opacity is the quick answer; changing the position so the mark falls across a lighter region of the layout is the better one. Check a page from each distinct section rather than only the first page, because a document that mixes prose and full-bleed images will not behave consistently.

Only against casual reuse, and it is worth being clear about the limit. A watermark says who owns a file and discourages passing it off, but the words underneath remain fully selectable and copyable — anyone can lift the text out and leave your mark behind. If the requirement is that people cannot open or print the file, use Protect PDF. If certain information must not be readable at all, that is Redact PDF. Watermarking is labelling, not security.

Not cleanly, and that is by design. The text becomes part of each page in the same way the original content is, so removing it would mean editing every page rather than switching off a setting. Keep your unmarked master file — watermark a copy for circulation and keep the clean version for yourself, exactly as you would with a signed contract. If you need the mark on some pages and not others, produce the document in sections and combine them with Merge PDF afterwards.