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A draft contract that mustn’t be signed yet. A file for the other party. A 70-page PDF with the payslips of the whole team, fresh from your payroll provider. At a law firm or in an HR department, a document like that goes around every week, and it has to leave the building recognizable, limited and protected.
Three tools do most of the work: adding a watermark, taking pages out and setting a password. They work in your browser, and your files are processed on your own device and not uploaded.
Add a watermark
A watermark such as CONFIDENTIAL, DRAFT or COPY shows at a glance what a document is. Even if it gets forwarded or printed later.
- Open Add watermark.
- Drag your PDF into the tool.
- Choose Text and type your watermark. In Watermark text, type for example “CONFIDENTIAL”.
- Choose a style. Diagonal (large, across the middle of the page), Horizontal or Repeated (small, all over the page).
- Click Add watermark and download the result.
The watermark is light gray and semi-transparent, so the text underneath stays readable. It goes on every page, and the tool adjusts the size of a text watermark to the page by itself. A logo works too: choose Image and load a PNG or JPG. A PNG with a transparent background stays transparent. For an image, you set the size (40% of the page width by default) and the Opacity (30% by default) yourself.
A copy of your ID card
Does a landlord, rental agency or new employer ask for a copy of your ID card? Use Add watermark to put the recipient, the purpose and the date on it, for example: “Copy for rental agency X – rental application – Oct 7, 2026”. That makes the copy harder to use for anything else.
Choose the Repeated style for this. Your text then appears small all over the page, so also over the card itself. With Diagonal, a long text stays easy to read, but it runs in one line across the middle of the page and sometimes barely touches a small card. Only have a photo of your card? Convert it first with JPG to PDF.
Payslips per employee
One big PDF with all the payslips? Take each employee out separately:
- Open Extract pages and choose the PDF.
- In Pages to keep, type the pages of one employee, for example “5-6”.
- Choose One PDF, click Extract pages and download.
- Repeat for the next employee.
Is every payslip exactly one page? Then type the whole range and choose Separate files: you get a zip with one PDF per page.
Does an attachment or an internal note need to come out of a contract before it goes to the other party? Use Delete pages. There’s more in Extract or delete PDF pages.
Protect it with a password
Open Protect PDF, type the password in Password and again in Repeat the password, and click Protect PDF.
The tool uses AES-256. Share the password through a different channel than email, and agree with your employees beforehand how they’ll get it.
Why not upload it?
Lawyers are bound by professional secrecy. HR works with salaries, national ID or social security numbers and sometimes medical certificates. Many online tools upload your file to their server. You can’t see who looks at the file there or how long it stays. The guide Why you shouldn’t upload a contract to a PDF site explains this further.
With PDFCommunity, your browser does the work itself. You don’t have to take our word for it: check it yourself in your browser’s network tab, as explained on Verify that no PDF is uploaded. This isn’t legal advice; follow the rules of your firm or organization.
Good to know
- A watermark isn’t a lock. Anyone with a PDF editor can remove it. It signals, it doesn’t protect.
- Harder to remove? Convert the PDF with PDF to JPG in High quality (300 DPI), then back with JPG to PDF. Watermark and page become one image. The downside: the text is no longer selectable and the file gets bigger.
- Nothing is blacked out. The tools can’t make text unreadable. If a number has to go, delete the whole page or ask for a version without that number.
- A watermark goes on every page. Want it on only some pages? Take those pages out first.
- Emoji in a watermark aren’t supported.
Frequently asked questions
Can someone remove the watermark?
Yes, with a PDF editor. Want to make it harder? Convert the PDF to JPG and back.
What should I put on my ID copy?
The recipient, the purpose and the date. That way a copy is only usable for one thing.
Does the watermark go on every page?
Yes, on all pages of the document.
Does my contract go to a server?
No. Your files aren't uploaded, and you can check that yourself.