DI reader Harish Nair is looking for some workaround to clear PDF watermarks. He writes:Is there a way to delete the watermarks that appear in some of the Adobe PDF files.Though it is very much possible to get rid of those annoying watermarks in PDF documents, the quality of the final output would largely depend on what software you have to process PDF files.
Let's look at some of the options here:
Option A [Best] - If you have access to the original Word documents or Excel Spreadsheets that were used for creating the Watermarked PDF, create a new PDF file minus the watermark using any of these free PDF tools or Google Docs.
Option B [Might Work] - Assuming that your PDF files are not password protected, download and install a trial copy of Adobe Acrobat 8. Open the PDF document in Acrobat, choose the option "Remove Watermark" and re-save the document.
Option C [The real hack] - We'll reverse engineer the document in this approach - Use Zamzar to convert the PDF document to a Microsoft Word file. Now either open this Word document in a locally installed copy of Microsoft Word or export it to Google Docs / Zoho Writer.You might see that the watermark text now appears on a overlapping layer in the converted document. Manually delete the text and save the doc file as PDF again. There won't be any watermarks in the new PDF file.
Option D [for small PDFs] - If you have print a 1 or 2 page PDF without the bookmark, convert the PDF to an image using either Zamzar or any screen capture program.
Open these images in either Photoshop or Gimp and use the Magic Wand or Touchup tool to delete the watermarks - In majority of the cases, watermarks are of the same color and can be easily selected using wand tools.
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-remove-watermarks-from-pdf.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Didn't know the Acrobat 8 trick (still stuck with v7). Thanks for the great tip.
Written on 30/12/06 7:40 AM
Or just use Adobe Illustrator to open the pdf, select the watermark object, delete, resave as pdf.
Written on 30/12/06 9:46 PM
last one won't work for long, zamzar will change it and google will too as well. Adobe takes these things seriously.
Written on 30/12/06 10:42 PM
For real security, customers should use Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server. Can't change anything in a document without the author knowing. You can't even forward it!
Written on 31/12/06 1:03 AM
Seems to me that even if the document is protected by Live Cycle Policy Server, you can still print to a file using a 3rd party PDF writer like Nitro (assuming you have the Policy Server password to open/print the file.) As far as I can tell, the new file is not protected by Live Cycle Policy Server and watermarks can be removed.
Written on 1/1/07 9:49 AM
Nice Tips...
Written on 2/1/07 12:33 PM
Zamzar is a s**t I uploaded a wvm file to convert in wav and it came back in my e-mail a wav file of 45MB!!!
I never saw a file that big, besides I belive that the zamzar site scans your files and I a banner in their site which was supposed to be from Yahoo have directed me to a pishing/scam site SO BE CAREFUL WITH ZAMZAR !!!
Written on 17/1/07 2:29 AM
Posted 30/12/06 9:46 PM by Anonymous "Or just use Adobe Illustrator to open the pdf, select the watermark object, delete, resave as pdf."
Not necesary, as far as the page is create, you can open with AdobeAcrobat and "select.....and delete", but once you have a 5 pages doc or 10 docs, how to erase them in one action?
That is the question.
I'm still using AdobAcrobat5
Andy, I wait your comments.
aaasantacruz@sympatico.ca
Written on 22/1/07 8:46 AM
Hi there is a software called as "Foxit PDF editor" which can be used to remove any kind of watermark. U can select objects in pdf & remove or move them selectively. It is excellent. Just visit http://www.foxitsoftware.com to download this small utlity of about 2MB size.
Written on 14/3/07 6:49 PM
I don't agree with you. The Foxit pdf editor free download will add its own bright red watermark instead when you save or print the file.
Written on 31/5/07 6:34 AM
you could also just write out the document on a piece of scrap paper. i find Biros are quite good for this.
Written on 15/6/07 7:23 PM