How to watermark a PDF with text, free
- Choose the PDF you want stamped.
- Type the word or phrase — DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL, a name, anything.
- Pick tiled across the page or one line through the middle, and how strong.
- Press Add the watermark and save; the selection box limits which pages get it.
Faint enough to read, strong enough to mean it
The stamp draws through the PDF’s own transparency setting rather than by washing the text out, which is the difference between a watermark and damage. Sixteen per cent grey — the default — reads clearly on screen and survives printing, while every word of the document underneath keeps its contrast.
Where the words land
Tiled repeats your text diagonally in a brick pattern that never lines up into columns, sized from the font size you set; a long phrase spaces itself out automatically. The centred layout draws one line at forty-five degrees through the middle of each selected page instead — the title-page style.
Questions
Can I remove the watermark later?
Not from the watermarked file — it is drawn into the page like any other ink, which is the point of a stamp. Keep the original and watermark a copy; the page is built for running twice.
Will it show up when the PDF is printed?
Yes. The stamp is real page content at print resolution, not a screen overlay, and the strength you pick is the strength that prints. If it must vanish on paper, this is not the tool for that job — and we would rather say so.
Does it work on scanned documents?
It does. Pages that carry their own rotation are stamped where the reader sees them, so the diagonal runs corner to corner on screen as well as on paper.
What happens to my file besides the stamp?
Pages keep their order, count and selectable text. Bookmarks cannot survive the rewrite and filled forms flatten to printed ink — both are named beside the result when they apply, never silently.