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VellumPDF

Add a watermark

Protect your documents with an elegant mark.

Your files never leave your device

Drop your PDF here

or click to browse your files

How to add a watermark to a PDF, step by step

A text or an image, with adjustable size, opacity, angle, colour, font, position and layer, is placed on the chosen pages, right in your browser.

  1. Drop in the PDF

    Drag the file onto the drop area, or click to choose it.

  2. Type the watermark text

    A default text (“CONFIDENTIAL”) is pre-filled; replace it with your own, or leave it as is.

  3. Set the size and opacity

    Size ranges from 12 to 144 points; the opacity slider from 5 to 100%, with the percentage shown live.

  4. Choose the angle and color

    Diagonal, Horizontal, Vertical or Custom for the angle; grey, gold, red or a custom colour; Helvetica, Times or Courier, bold or italic if needed; one of nine positions or Tiled.

  5. Click “Apply watermark”

    The watermark is stamped on every page, or on those in the “Pages” field, over the content or “Under the content”.

A near-vertical angle combined with a corner position can push a long text off the page: check the result, or prefer a central position.

Frequently asked questions

How do you add a text watermark across every page of a PDF?

Drop the PDF, type the watermark text (for example “CONFIDENTIAL” or “DRAFT”) or choose an image (logo, stamp), then set the size, opacity, angle, colour, font and position. The watermark goes on every page, or only on the pages listed under “Pages”.

Can I adjust the opacity so the watermark doesn’t interfere with reading?

Yes, opacity can be set from 5 to 100 %, and the watermark can sit “Under the content”: it stays visible in margins and light areas without covering the text.

Is the PDF uploaded to a server to receive the watermark, and is it free?

No, the watermark is burned in directly inside your browser, with no upload of the document, and the tool is free.

Is the watermark repeated multiple times across the page, like a pattern?

Yes, with “Tiled”: the watermark is repeated in a staggered pattern across the whole page. The nine other positions place it once (corner, edge or centre).

Can I choose a free rotation angle for the watermark?

Yes. Besides Diagonal, Horizontal and Vertical, “Custom” accepts any angle from -180° to 180°.

Does the watermark stop my PDF from being copied or reused?

No, it’s a visual mark drawn onto each page’s rendering, with no effect on the right to copy, print, or extract text. To restrict those actions, use a password-protection tool, not a watermark.

Can the watermark be in Russian, Arabic or Chinese?

Yes. Text in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese stays in the standard font you chose. Text in another alphabet goes through a suitable open font: Greek, Cyrillic, Central European letters, Arabic and Hebrew (joined letters, right to left), Chinese, Japanese and Korean — the font for these last three is downloaded once from GitHub, announced under the field. The same applies to the custom page-number format and the Bates numbering prefix.