Add Watermarks to PDF in Java

Watermark artifacts let you place persistent visual markings on a page without mixing them into the main document content.

Add a watermark artifact

Use this example when the page should display a centered text watermark with custom rotation, opacity, and background placement.

  1. Open the source PDF Document.
  2. Create a WatermarkArtifact and configure its text state and placement settings.
  3. Add the watermark to the page and save the output file.
public static void addWatermarkArtifact(Path inputFile, Path outputFile) {
    try (Document document = new Document(inputFile.toString())) {
        TextState textState = new TextState();
        textState.setFontSize(72);
        textState.setForegroundColor(Color.getBlueViolet());
        textState.setFontStyle(FontStyles.Bold);
        textState.setFont(FontRepository.findFont("Arial"));

        WatermarkArtifact watermark = new WatermarkArtifact();
        watermark.setTextAndState("WATERMARK", textState);
        watermark.setArtifactHorizontalAlignment(HorizontalAlignment.Center);
        watermark.setArtifactVerticalAlignment(VerticalAlignment.Center);
        watermark.setRotation(60);
        watermark.setOpacity(0.2);
        watermark.setBackground(true);

        document.getPages().get_Item(1).getArtifacts().add(watermark);
        document.save(outputFile.toString());
    }
}
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