How To Add a Watermark To PDF & Pages Documents On Mac.
Adding a watermark to PDFs and Pages documents ensures that anyone who can access your files knows where they come from. Today’s file sharing activities make it easy to get the rights to lost files if they don’t have a watermark to claim them as your own.
If you are using a Mac computer and the file you want to add the watermark to is a PDF or Pages document, adding a watermark to the file is quite simple. What’s more, you don’t even need to install a third-party app to complete this task.
The built-in options in macOS are good enough to help you watermark PDF and Pages files.
Add a watermark to a PDF using Automator on Mac
If you want to add a watermark to a PDF, you can do so with a click of a button after creating an Automator service for it. Automator helps you automate many tasks on your computer, and adding watermarks to PDFs is one of them.
What you basically need to do is create a service in Automator that will add the watermark of your choice to your PDF file. Once created, you can simply right-click any of your PDFs to watermark them.
- Click Launchpad in the dock, find Automator and click it when it appears.
- From the main Automator screen, select the Service option and then click the Select button at the bottom. This will allow you to create a new service.
- On the next screen, you need to configure a few settings first before starting adding actions. Set the following options at the top:
The service gets the selected files or folders in the Finder
- Next, place your cursor in the action search box and enter watermarked PDFs. When the action appears, drag it to the panel on the right side.
- You are now ready to customize the appearance of the watermark. Click the Add button in the right pane to add a watermark that will be used in your PDF files.
- Browse your Mac, locate the watermark file, click it and select.
- You now have a few more options to customize your watermark.
Draw a watermark over PDF – the watermark will be added over the existing content of the PDF file
Draw a watermark under the PDF – the watermark will be added under the existing content of the PDF file
X – set the x position of the watermark for your document
Y – set the y position of the watermark for your document
Scale – this allows you to increase and decrease the size of the watermark
Angle – choose an angle for the watermark
Opacity – this allows you to set the transparency level for your watermark file
Check the watermark when previewing it on the screen and make sure it looks the way you want it.
- Return to the activity search window and search for Move Finder Items. When it appears, drag it to the right pane under the action of the watermark.
- Make sure Desktop is selected in the To field of the new activity.
- It’s time to save your service. Click the File menu at the top and select Save.
- Enter a friendly name for your service and click Save. You will need to use a name that you can easily recognize later, as that name will appear whenever you want to watermark a file.
- Now that the service has been created, it’s time to use it. Find the PDF file you want to watermark in Finder, right-click the file, select Services, and then select the name of the newly created service.
It will add your preset watermark to your PDF and move the file to your Mac desktop. The image of the watermark in the file will be placed exactly as you indicated in the service above.
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Add a watermark to a Pages document on Mac
If you haven’t exported a Pages document to PDF yet or plan to do so, you can still add a watermark to your Pages file. The app has a built-in function to help you accomplish this task. This does not require you to create any Automator service.
- Open a document in Pages on your Mac.
- When the document opens, you will find several icons at the top of the document. Find the one that says “Text” and click on it. This will add a text box to your document.
- In the newly created text box, enter your watermark. This can be any text that you want to use as a watermark for your Pages document.
- Click the Text section in the right sidebar to format the text. You might want to increase the size of the text, perhaps change its color, and even change the font style. Play around with it until you find a suitable watermark.
- You need to lower the opacity of the text to make its content readable. Click the Style section in the right sidebar and use the Opacity box to do this.
- Place the watermark where you want it on the document. Then click the Arrange menu at the top and select Section Masters and then Move Object to Section Master. The watermark will be placed in the background of the document.
Your perfect watermark has been added to your Pages document. Remember that you do not need to do this for every page of your document, as the watermark will be copied and placed in the same place on all pages of your file.
If you ever need to edit the watermark, click the Arrange menu, select Section Masters and click Make Main Objects Selectable.
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