Folia Tools
All tools › Edit › Add watermark
Add watermark
Stamp text over every page. Free, no sign-up.
or drop it here
Add watermark runs inside your browser — your file never reaches our servers.
How to add a watermark to a PDF
A watermark is a visible mark on every page. It is a signal, not a lock.
- Select your PDF. Any document.
- Set your text and position. Choose the wording, how faint it is, and where it sits.
- Download. Every page carries the mark.
What the stamp does to the file
The text is drawn into each page’s content stream, over whatever is already there, on every page — there is no page range. Nothing underneath moves and nothing is re-encoded, so the text below stays selectable and images keep their resolution. The mark is real text itself: 48 point, mid grey, at the opacity you set, and it turns up in a search of the finished file.
If the mark has to survive being passed around, run the watermarked file through Flatten PDF on its rasterize setting. Every page comes back as a 150 dpi image, so the stamp is part of the picture rather than an object sitting on top of one. The cost is the text layer: the document stops being searchable, and it takes OCR PDF to give it one back.
A watermark brings its font with it, and the face is embedded whole rather than subset — subsetting these faces drops glyphs, and CONFIDENTIAL came back out of the subsetter as CON N A, so the whole face goes in. The Latin face is about 600 KB before compression, so a Latin stamp adds a few hundred kilobytes. The Korean and Chinese faces are 6 MB and 10 MB, so a CJK stamp adds several megabytes.
48 points, one line, no wrapping
The text is set at a fixed 48 points and drawn as a single line. It is never scaled down and it never wraps, so the length of the phrase is the thing worth checking before you commit. CONFIDENTIAL measures about 342 points and A4 is 595 points across, so a centred stamp clears each edge by roughly 126. INTERNAL USE ONLY runs to about 468 and still fits. SAMPLE — NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION is about 806, and hangs off both sides of the page.
Nothing clips or shrinks an over-long line. A corner position keeps 40 points of margin on its own side and the text runs on regardless, so on A4 a phrase wider than the 515 points between the margins simply carries off the page, and a centred one overhangs both edges equally. Around eighteen capitals is the practical limit on A4 portrait. Opacity runs from 3 to 100 per cent and starts at 18, faint enough to read the page through.
Questions
Can someone remove my watermark?
Yes, with effort — a watermark is drawn onto the page, not locked to it. If you need to actually restrict a document, use Protect PDF, which encrypts it. We would rather tell you that than let you rely on a mark that will not hold.
Does it support Korean, Chinese, Arabic or Thai?
Yes. The full unicode font set is bundled, so non-Latin watermarks render properly instead of turning into empty boxes.
Can I put the watermark diagonally across the page?
No. The text is drawn horizontally, with no rotation applied, in one of seven positions: three across the top, the centre, and three across the bottom. Centre is the closest thing here to the classic diagonal stamp.
Can I watermark only some of the pages?
Not in this tool — every page gets the mark. If it only belongs on part of a document, split it at that boundary with Split PDF, stamp the part that needs it, then merge the pieces back in order.
Can I use a logo or an image as the watermark?
No, this tool stamps text only. Sign PDF places a drawn image where you click, page by page, rather than repeating one across the whole document.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Every tool on this site runs inside your browser, using the same engine as the Folia desktop app. Your file is read from your disk into your browser’s memory, processed there, and handed back as a download. It never crosses the internet, so there is nothing for us to store, leak or hand over.
Is there a file size limit?
We impose none. The only ceiling is your own device’s memory, which differs from one computer to another — so we read what your browser reports about this machine and show the resulting limit on the page. Light tools like merge and rotate handle far more than heavy ones like OCR, which must render every page. For anything larger, Folia for Desktop has no limit at all.
Is it really free? Do I need an account?
Yes, and no. Every tool is free and unlimited, with no watermark and no sign-up. Ads pay for the site, and your own computer does the work, which costs us nothing. Signing in with a paid Folia plan simply removes the ads.