Watermarks in InDesign

It is a simple solution in InDesign to make a watermark on a single page, then copy the text to other pages. Here are the steps:

1. Type the text you want such as DRAFT.
2. Under the Window tab, click EFFECTS
3. You need to tag the text box instead of the text.
4. After the text box is highlghted the Effects box has an elevator (slide bar) to choose how much opacity to give to the text inside the text box.
5. Slide the elevator left or right to increase or decrease the opacity.
6. Wa-la!  You can now copy paste the text to multiple pages.

Hello Everyone

someone please tell me how to add watermark in Indesign document or using javascript.

Thanks.

Marijan - absolutely perfect - EXACTLY what I was looking for.

Great sites in your signature too - have bookmarked them for further viewing.

Keep up the great work.

Hey,

There is hidden class inside InDesign scripting which allows you to add watermark directly inside InDesign. So, here is custom InDesign panel which allows you to set watermark without additional layers and stuff.

http://bit.ly/jdPEZj

Hope this helps.

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Marijan (tomaxxi)

http://indisnip.wordpress.com/

http://inditip.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/tomaxxi

lcl276 wrote: Good afternoon I have a 600+ page manual, with over 25 Master Pages throughout the document. I would like to export the document for proofing for the client with a watermark of "DRAFT" across every page. Is this possible to do in one go rather than having to go through each Master Page and add the word "DRAFT" across each one? Thanks

Although there are many ways "to skin a cat," once the cat is skinned, it didn't matter which one was used, especially to the cat.

Although there are opinions here on whether it's better to apply the DRAFT watermark in InDesign or Acrobat, there are several ways to deal with the problem of how to show/hide it. One may fit your workflow better than others.

* In your case with many master pages, you might begin with creating a new master page with the watermark on it, and base master pages on the master page with the watermark. This makes it easy to show/hide the watermark across all pages based on one master page. If some master pages are based on others, you can base such "foundation" master pages on the watermark master page.

To control the visibility of the watermark, you can use a combination of InDesign and Acrobat features.

* On the common based-on master page in InDesign, create a new bottom-level layer for the watermark. You can show/hide the InDesign layers in InDesign and/or in Acrobat. Acrobat has many options for dealing with PDF document layers that were created in source applications such as InDesign; to create an Acrobat layer, you need to import a layer from a PDF or layered image file, such as Photoshop.

* In InDesign, you can make layers and/or objects nonprinting. Hidden InDesign layers are retained in PDF exports.

* In InDesign you can apply a condition to the watermark and show/hide it before exporting to PDF, but Acrobat can't show/hide a condition, only layers.

* In InDesign, you can create a cross-reference to watermark text and insert content into the cross-reference source paragraph or leave it blank, to show/hide the watermark, or show/hide the condition on the cross-reference source or reference text, or show/hide the cross-reference's layer.

* Layer visibility in PDFs with "no changes" security settings can still be changed by users without passwords, so a DRAFT watermark layer can be hidden. Watermarks in PDFs with "no changes" security cannot be hidden or changed by users without passwords.

Applying and managing a watermark solely in a PDF can result in exporting an InDesign file to PDF and forgetting to apply the watermark in Acrobat before sending the document.

So, what's the surest and simplest approach to avoid forgetting to display a watermark in a PDF that users can't change, and to avoid forgetting to remove it from the final PDF? If the InDesign document is layered, and the user won't need access to layers, a good candidate is to create the watermark in InDesign and uncheck Create Acrobat Layers, and check View PDF after Exporting to verify the result. If the user requires access to PDF layers, perhaps to view different comp layouts, create the watermark on every essential layer, and check Create Acrobat Layers; this displays the watermark no matter which layer is showing. If there are many essential layers, conditional text is useful here, because it works across layers, so showing/hiding a conditionalized watermark on many layers at once is a one-click operation. If your document is an InDesign book consisting of multiple independent component files, you can use the book's synchronize feature to apply show/hide condition settings to all files in the book in one operation.

Search Google for terms like "InDesign layer visibility," "Acrobat PDF layer visibility," "InDesign conditional text," "InDesign synchronize book," "InDesign cross-reference," and similar terms for details on these topics.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

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Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices