by David R. Mankin
A while back I wrote about Acrobat's watermark feature. At that time, I created the watermark by typing the word DRAFT in the watermark creation dialog box.
There's another type of watermark possible in Acrobat 9--an image-based watermark that will allow you to have your company logo display on each page. The image watermark can be bold or subtle, and can appear on whatever pages you choose.
To insert an image-based watermark, choose Document > Watermark > Add.
Select File as the source and browse for your desired image file. (Accepted file formats are .pdf, .bmp, .rle, .dib and .jpg.) In my example, I selected a PDF file that I made from a coat-of-arms image. In the preview pane, you will immediately see a preview of the image and it will seem rather harsh. Not to worry. The image comes in with an opacity setting of 100% by default. For images, I like to dial the opacity percentage down to around 20%. Depending on the dimensions of your image file, you may opt to scale it to each targeted page. (In my example, I have it set to scale to 80%).
There are other options with which you may want to try such as image rotation and behind versus on top of page. By clicking the Appearance Options link, you can further tweak the watermark to show or not when the document is printed, and/or displayed on screen.
If your document has varying page sizes, you can opt to keep the watermark's position constant or not. You can even specify coordinates to place your watermark in a specific location on your pages.
If you need to apply this new custom watermark to more than your current PDF, you can click the Apply to Multiple button to select other files to include.
Didn't know Acrobat could do that? Don't feel bad. There are dozens of tricks and features that most folks don't know about. Sign up for my live, project-based online Acrobat 9 Professional class to learn lots of neat and useful tips, tricks and techniques that will make your PDF files stand out and be noticed.
A while back I wrote about Acrobat's watermark feature. At that time, I created the watermark by typing the word DRAFT in the watermark creation dialog box.
There's another type of watermark possible in Acrobat 9--an image-based watermark that will allow you to have your company logo display on each page. The image watermark can be bold or subtle, and can appear on whatever pages you choose.
To insert an image-based watermark, choose Document > Watermark > Add.
Select File as the source and browse for your desired image file. (Accepted file formats are .pdf, .bmp, .rle, .dib and .jpg.) In my example, I selected a PDF file that I made from a coat-of-arms image. In the preview pane, you will immediately see a preview of the image and it will seem rather harsh. Not to worry. The image comes in with an opacity setting of 100% by default. For images, I like to dial the opacity percentage down to around 20%. Depending on the dimensions of your image file, you may opt to scale it to each targeted page. (In my example, I have it set to scale to 80%).
There are other options with which you may want to try such as image rotation and behind versus on top of page. By clicking the Appearance Options link, you can further tweak the watermark to show or not when the document is printed, and/or displayed on screen.
If your document has varying page sizes, you can opt to keep the watermark's position constant or not. You can even specify coordinates to place your watermark in a specific location on your pages.
If you need to apply this new custom watermark to more than your current PDF, you can click the Apply to Multiple button to select other files to include.
Didn't know Acrobat could do that? Don't feel bad. There are dozens of tricks and features that most folks don't know about. Sign up for my live, project-based online Acrobat 9 Professional class to learn lots of neat and useful tips, tricks and techniques that will make your PDF files stand out and be noticed.
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About the author: David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. And if that wasn't enough, of course David is an Adobe-certified expert in Adobe Acrobat.
When adding a watermark is there any way of changing the "saved settings" default setting from "non specified", as when i add a watermark it comes in at the wrong size as the "scale relative to target page" box is ticked.
Hope this makes sense
Danny
Posted by: Danny | May 17, 2011 at 08:47 AM
I discovered the magic of watermarks in Adobe Pro 9 but having a problem recalling as saved watermark setting for later use. I named the setting/file under a specific name; brought up a new file, opened the watermark window and called up the save setting. A splash screen, moving way to fast for me to freeze came up, and the watermark would not apply to the .pdf. I suspect the splash screen was trying to tell me something regarding the save file...but I couldn't freeze it. Tried other settings and files under other names and same problem. Any suggestions as to why the saved file will not come-up?
Posted by: Bob Madden | May 28, 2012 at 05:44 PM
Discovered the solution to my problem re using saved watermarks. For some reason, when using centimeters for positioning, the saved watermark is not happy. Using inches, instead, resolves the problem and the saved watermark comes back.
Posted by: Bob Madden | May 31, 2012 at 10:03 AM