A visible text watermark discourages unauthorized sharing by clearly marking every page with a message like CONFIDENTIAL, DRAFT, FOR REVIEW ONLY, or DO NOT COPY. Here is how to add one for free with full customization.
Go to pdfeditor.onl/watermark-pdf and upload your PDF.
Type your watermark in the text field: CONFIDENTIAL, DRAFT, DO NOT COPY, FOR REVIEW ONLY, SAMPLE, or any custom text including your company name.
Choose opacity (20–50% is standard for professional watermarks), font size (48–80pt for A4/letter), and rotation angle (45° diagonal is the classic position). Choose a color — gray, light red, or light blue are commonly used.
Tip: For internal review documents, 30% opacity gray diagonal text is the industry standard — visible enough to communicate the status without making the content unreadable.
The preview updates live as you adjust settings. Click Download PDF once the watermark looks correct. The watermark is permanently embedded on every page.
The watermark is embedded as a PDF vector text object. It can potentially be removed by someone with advanced PDF editing tools. For the most tamper-resistant watermark, embed it as a flattened image layer.
The tool applies the watermark to all pages. For page-specific watermarks, split the PDF, watermark the target pages, then merge back.
Minimally. A text watermark adds only a small amount of PDF markup — typically a few kilobytes regardless of document length.