A PDF watermark can distract you, so the best solution is to remove it. Here are four free ways to do this.
The PDF is a versatile document file type that was created and popularized by Adobe Inc. Together with Microsoft Word, they form two of the most widely used document formats.
Given the right tools, you can do a lot with PDFs. You can merge, convert, compress, resize, trim, split, rotate, and (un)lock PDFs, among others. Best of all, you can do all these for free.
Another cool thing you can do with PDFs is to add or remove a watermark. In this article, you'll learn more about why people remove watermarks and, most importantly, how to remove a watermark from PDFs online.
If you're like most PDF users, you probably already know how to add a watermark to a PDF. But did you also know that you can remove a watermark from a PDF file and that you can do it online, for free?
Before we delve into how to remove a watermark from PDFs, let us see some reasons why people remove watermarks from PDFs in the first place.
Now, let's jump into how to remove watermarks from PDFs using some free tools.
Soda PDF is a powerful multipurpose PDF editor. Its free online tools allow you to merge, compress, convert, split, resize, rotate, and modify PDFs with ease.
Here's how to remove watermarks from PDFs using Soda PDF Online.
This tool is available in eight different languages, including English, German, and French. To view the other language options, simply click on the gear icon.
Soda PDF's PDF watermark remover is the most straightforward way to remove watermark from PDFs online for free. In the rare case that it fails to remove the watermark, you can try other watermark removal methods explained below.
Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word-processing tools on the planet. You can also use it to remove watermarks from PDFs by first converting the PDF to Word, removing the watermark, then saving the document as a PDF. This works with almost all PDF editors.
For this demonstration, we'll be using the Foxit PDF editor. Here's how:
Foxit's desktop software also allows you to directly remove watermarks from PDFs without going this long route using MS Word. We've also covered how to remove the Activate Windows 10 Watermark from your computer.
Google Docs is another well-known word processor, made popular by none other than Google itself. You can use Google Docs to create, edit, and process documents. You can also add a watermark to Google Docs, as well as use it to remove a watermark from PDFs.
Here's how to remove watermarks from PDFs online using Google Docs:
Note that if a PDF file is encrypted, you'll need to unlock it before you can remove the watermark.
PDF Zorro is another robust PDF editor that allows you to merge, split, crop, rotate, secure, unlock, and convert PDF files, among others. With PDF Zorro, you can remove watermarks from PDFs using the whiten, blacken, or eraser tool.
Here's how to use PDF Zorro to remove watermarks from PDFs online using the eraser tool.
This method works best if the watermark isn't layered over text; otherwise, it may cause the surrounding text to also be erased.
Now that you know how to remove watermarks from PDFs online for free, you can go ahead and remove them if you no longer need them in your PDFs. However, ensure that you only remove watermarks from PDFs that you created yourself or that you have authority to modify; otherwise, you could be infringing on someone's copyright and could land in trouble.
There's so much you can do with PDFs, including adding and removing watermarks. Although you can do these for free online, there are also a number of other software that allow you to edit PDFs on your Windows and Mac computer.
Joy is an internet and technology writer at MUO. She has over two years of writing experience covering everyday technology for various tech publications.
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