Watermark not working? Find your problem and fix it

What you see, and where to look

Almost every watermark problem is a setting, and the cards in Add Watermark show each page before you save, so you can fix it without starting again. Match what you see:

The Add watermark button can't be pressed

The button stays off until the settings make sense. Look at these, in this order:

• The text box is empty. Type words or press one of the ready-made ones, such as CONFIDENTIAL, DRAFT or COPY.
• The text holds a letter the font can't draw. The box says which one. Remove it, or read the section on other scripts below. Letters with accents, such as é and ü, digits and common punctuation are fine.
• Picture or logo is selected, but no picture is chosen. Press Choose a picture, or switch back to Text.
• Only some is selected, but no pages are typed. Type pages like 1-3, 5, or choose All pages.

A box with a problem gets a stronger outline and a line under it that says what is wrong. Fix that, and the button turns on.

The watermark is too dark, or too faint

The watermark hides the words under it

This is opacity. At 100%, the watermark is solid and covers what is beneath it. At the starting 30%, most of the page shows through. To fix a mark that is too heavy:

1. Move the Opacity slider down to 20% or 30%.
2. Choose grey, the quietest colour. Red stands out more and is best kept for CONFIDENTIAL or PAID.
3. Make the words smaller, or put them once in the middle instead of repeated, so less of the page is covered.
4. Look at a card with dense text on it, and judge by that page, not by a mostly white one.

Keep 100% for a mark that is meant to hide what lies under it. For ID copies, 30% to 40% is a good range: the details stay readable for the person checking them, and the mark still crosses the whole card. A printed page usually looks a little heavier than a screen does, so test a printout if the paper matters.

You can hardly see the watermark

The opposite problem: the page is easy to read but the mark is lost. Raise one thing at a time and watch the card:

• Opacity. From 30% to 40% or 50%.
• Size. Words can go from 12 to 150 points. At 60 points, CONFIDENTIAL fits across an A4 page at an angle. A logo can be 10% to 100% of the page's width.
• Colour. Red or black stand out more than grey, on a white page.
• Repeated. Rows of smaller marks cover more of the page than one word in the middle. Words of 30 to 48 points work best this way.

If the page has a dark or coloured background, such as a scan with grey paper, a grey mark will blend in. Try a different colour, and judge by the card.

The watermark runs off the page

A long line of words at an angle needs more room than the same words straight, because it crosses the page corner to corner. If the card shows the word cut at the edge:

• Lower the Size until the card shows the whole watermark inside the page.
• Choose Straight instead of Diagonal, which uses the width of the page.
• Use fewer or shorter words. "For visa application only" is longer than COPY, so it needs a smaller size.

Repeated watermarks are meant to run off the edges: that is how rows fill a page. Our sample, with red 36-point CONFIDENTIAL repeated diagonally, makes 27 copies on each A4 page, some running off its edges, and the cards show the same 27. The pages in a file can be different sizes: each page is measured on its own, so the mark sits in the middle of every page, whatever its shape.

Hindi, Tamil or another script won't type

Watermark words are written in Helvetica Bold, a standard font every PDF reader has. It has Latin letters, with accents, digits and common punctuation, but not Devanagari, Tamil, Arabic or other scripts. If you type a character it can't draw, the box says which one, and nothing is saved until you change it.

The way around it is to make a picture of the words and use that as a picture watermark. One way:

1. Type the words in a document in your own script, and make a PDF from it with Word to PDF, which handles nine Indian scripts. Word to PDF in Hindi and Indian languages explains how.
2. Turn that page into a picture with PDF to PNG at High.
3. Crop the picture tightly around the words in your photo app. A screenshot of the words on a plain background works too.
4. If your app can make the white background see-through, do that. PDF to PNG with no background explains how. Without it, the picture will show as a pale box on the pages.
5. In Add Watermark, choose Picture or logo and pick your PNG.

We haven't tried every photo app's background remover, so check the result on the cards before you save. The picture is made smaller to at most 1000 pixels on its longer side, which is sharp enough for words about 8 cm wide on paper.

A logo with a white box, or a blurry one

A white box around the logo.

The picture has a white background. Use a PNG with a see-through background, often called a transparent PNG. Only the logo then shows. JPG can't be see-through.

The logo looks blurry.

It was a small picture to begin with. The tool makes big pictures smaller (to at most 1000 pixels on the longer side) but can't make a small one sharper. Use the biggest, cleanest copy you have.

The picture can't be opened.

Some formats, like HEIC photos from iPhones, don't open in every browser. Save it as PNG or JPG first.

The logo is too big or too small.

For a picture, Size is a share of the page's width: 40% at the start. A logo at 20% to 30% opacity in the middle of the page is a common look for letterheads and brochures.

The logo's white parts disappeared.

White letters on a see-through picture vanish on white paper. Use the version of the logo made for light backgrounds.

Logos are stored once and used on every page, so they add very little to the size: in our tests, a 14-page paper with a 600 by 200 pixel logo on every page came out 6 KB bigger than with a word watermark.

Some pages have a watermark and some don't

Under Pages, All pages stamps everything. Only some stamps the pages you type, like 1-3, 5. The other pages stay exactly as they were.

• Check each card. Every card says With watermark or No watermark under it. If a page says No watermark and shouldn't, change the pages.
• With several files, the typed pages count from the first page of each file, and a file with none of them is left out. Page 3 means the third page of every file you added, not of the whole set.
• To put a watermark on all but a cover, choose Only some and type 2-, which means page 2 to the end. A list like 1-3, 5, 8- works too. Check the cards, which show the answer.

If you want the pages of several files treated as one long run, join them first with Merge PDF, then stamp the single file.

You opened the original, not the new copy

This catches many people. Add Watermark never changes your original. It makes a new file, named after it with "-watermarked" added, like report-watermarked.pdf, and that is the one with the mark. If you open report.pdf, there is no watermark, and it looks as if the tool did nothing.

• Look for the new name in your Downloads folder, or in the row under the tool, which shows the file's name.
• Several files come in one ZIP file, watermarked-pdfs.zip. Open the ZIP and pick the PDFs inside.
• If you change an option after saving, the Add watermark button comes back and the old download goes away. That way, the file you download always matches the cards.

Before you send the file, send the right one. A watermarked copy and an unmarked original can look almost the same on a phone's file list. Give the copy a clear name, and keep the original somewhere private.

Locked, signed and very large files

"Locked with a password."

The file needs a password to open, so it can't be stamped. Remove the password with Unlock PDF, which needs the password, then stamp the unlocked copy. If you want to lock the final file again, do that last with Protect PDF.

A digital signature stopped being valid.

A signed PDF can be stamped, but the changed copy no longer carries a valid signature, and the result says so. If the signature matters, send the signed original and keep the marked copy for other uses.

A form's boxes show over the watermark.

That is how PDF readers draw forms: their boxes sit above the page. The watermark is still on the page, beneath them.

"These files are too big to handle in this browser's memory."

Stamp fewer files at a time, or use a computer. We set no size limit, but the file and the new PDF are both held in memory while it is made.

The file got bigger.

Words add very little: in our tests a textbook went from 5.07 MB to 5.04 MB with repeated words. Pictures and photos add more than words.

A 30-second check that avoids most problems

1. Pick the words, size, colour and opacity, then look at the busiest page's card, not the emptiest.
2. Check that every card says With watermark where it should.
3. Press Add watermark and download the new file.
4. Open the new file and zoom in on the place that matters, like a number on an ID copy. Can you still read it?
5. Keep the original, which the tool never changes, in case you want different settings.

A watermark can't be taken off again with our tool, so a quick look before you save saves redoing the whole job. If you want to read about what a watermark does and doesn't protect, Does a PDF watermark protect your file? goes through it.

Try again as many times as you like

There is no upload step, so there is no cost in trying settings again. Your PDF and your logo are never sent anywhere: your own browser adds the watermark. The page contacts only this site and Google's ad service, which shows the ads that keep the tools free, and our code never gives your files to the ad code. The privacy policy has the details.