Adobe Acrobat X Pro Remove Watermark

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I thought this would be a simple task, but it turned out the other way.

The watermark is the very same (overlapping, but transparent) image on every single page. I created the PDF file myself (so no copyright worries here) using PDFCreator 0.9.8.

I have already tried my friend's Adobe Acrobat Pro, but it didn't work. It tries to remove it, but it can't. I tried to remove header/footer, etc., but the watermark just won't disappear.

Adobe Acrobat X Pro Remove Watermark Windows 10

How can I remove the watermark?

Dennis
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ShikiShiki
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8 Answers

For image-based watermarks, there are several tools that promise their automatic removal. For example:

All of these are free to try, but require a license to actually produce the desired output.

However, the watermark of this specific PDF file (which the OP sent me via email) isn't a single image that is repeated on all pages. As it turns out, PDFCreator hardcoded it (almost pixel by pixel) into every single one of them. This makes the watermark much more difficult to remove (and results in a rather bloated PDF file).

Since the watermark is actually composed of many tiny images, you can remove them with a PDF editor (e.g., Foxit Advanced PDF Editor), simply by selecting them and pressing Delete. Unfortunately, you have to repeat this for every page.

A less time-consuming solution would be to remove the watermark programmatically. We need:

  • Pdftk: a tool to (un)compress and fix PDF streams.
  • Notepad++: a text editor capable of replacing Perl Compatible Regular Expressions.

Steps

  1. Download Pdftk and extract pdftk.exe and libiconv2.dll to %windir%System32, a directory in the path or any other location of your choice.

  2. Download and install Notepad++.

  3. PDF streams are usually compressed using the DEFLATE algorithm. This saves space, but it makes the PDF's source illegible.

    The command

    uncompresses all streams, so they can be modified by a text editor.

  4. Open uncompressed.pdf with Notepad++ to reveal the structure of the watermark.

    In this specific case, every page begins with the block

    and nearly 4,000 blocks just like this one. This particular block sets only one (/W 1 /H 1) of the watermark's pixels.

    Scrolling down until the pattern changes reveals that the watermark's stream is 95,906 bytes long (counting newlines). The exact same stream is repeated on every page of the PDF file.

  5. Press Ctrl + H and set the following:

    The regular expression q 9 0 0 9 2997 4118.67 cm.{95881} matches the first line of the above block (q 9 0 0 9 2997 4118.67 cm) and all following 95,881 characters, i.e., the watermark's stream. Download star plus song tu hi tu.

    Clicking Replace All removes it from all pages of the PDF file.

  6. The watermark has now been removed, but the PDF file has errors (the streams' lengths are incorrect) and it's uncompressed.

    The command

    takes care of both.

  7. uncompressed.pdf is no longer needed. You can delete it.

The result is the same PDF without the watermark (and about half the size).

DennisDennis
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It sounds like the watermark is actually part of the images within the .PDF, and not a separate image rendered over it by whatever you are using to display the .PDF. You may not be able to remove the watermark without extracting the images from the .PDF, running them through an image editor, and then reconstructing the .PDF manually.

LawrenceCLawrenceC
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For text watermarks, editing a PostScript version can be much easier: After

$ pdftops document.pdf

edit document.ps, then convert back to PDF via

$ ps2pdf document.ps

heinerheiner

The artifacts of the stamp are that you can delete it within Adobe Acrobat Pro, however it regenerates on a mouse-move because the stream object keeps it persistent.

If you try to edit the pdf source - which is tricky, there's a chance that the file will be corrupted.

If the stamp is a stream, we can interrupt it by disconnecting the computer from the Net, which I did.

Then using the Adobe Acrobat Pro, I selected one of my annotations, right-clicked to get the popup, and selected 'Show Comments List'.

Select the nefarious watermark/stamp from the List, right-click to get the popup and select 'Delete'. Do this on every page where the affixation occurs.

Adobe

Save the File under another name. My application crashed, but not before saving the file!

Open the new & much smaller file; note that all the watermarks/stamps are gonzo.

In my case, the file size of my 3-page document shrank from 300 kb down to an impressive 60 kb. All the original data and annotations remained intact - sans the watermarks.

~Good hunting :o)

Alan HordAlan Hord

convert the document into .rtf file using zamzar. The water mark vanishes automatically after conversion. Please Note:- It works perfectly if the document contains text material.It has always been of great help.(Mac user)

ShifaShifa

Found another way to do it:

  1. Use pdf2htmlEX tool (or any other PDF to HTML converter) to convert the PDF to a HTML file.
  2. Edit HTML with a text editor, and remove the watermark. Save it.
  3. Print to the HTML to a new PDF document
  4. Profit
Dominik AntalDominik Antal

This is a supplement to @Dennis' answer of 18:06 30 Jul 2012.He certainly addresses the harder case.

In the simplest case where the watermark is simple, unadorned text, for example

Smedley For Commissioner

the uncompressed PDF watermarks might be defined like this:

where 75.96 is the horizontal offset and 625 the vertical offset for this particular watermark instance. (Yes, both real numbers and integers may be seen.)

A regexp like the following will work for all such watermarks, ignoring any variations in their placement:

Be aware, tho, that a variety of modifying PDF operators can come into play with watermarks that have more complicated formatting. Such fanciness can transform what the reader expects (hopes?) to be a contiguous, easily-searched-for string into a mess of alphabet soup. For example,

E1 = mc² by Smedley™

Might be the product of this:

. . . or far worse if your watermark is color-enhanced!

Having noted all this, I will also noted that PDFtk has a GUI version that purports to handle watermarks, in consideration of a $4 licensing fee. Not pricey at all!

On the other hand, I find its website currently advertises full support for O/S's through Windows 8 and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. That vintage is over 4 years ago. Might PDFtk be getting outdated? I suspect not, but I don't know.

Der SchleyDer Schley

Here are free and paid ways to do it, I suggest you use Google Drive.

Google Drive has the ability to open files and do some minor editing. Also, it can be used to remove watermark from PDF online.

  1. Open your Google Drive account, which is basically the same as yourGmail account.
  2. Click on “New” > “File upload”, select a PDF document and thenupload it.
  3. Once done, you can check the uploaded file on your Drive, then rightclick to open it with “Google Docs”.
  4. Afterwards, your watermark will be removed automatically. To saveit, go to “File” and click “Download as” and then choose “PDFdocument”.
Crystal WangCrystal Wang

protected by CommunityJun 28 '18 at 15:44

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'I just downloaded a PDF file from the web but it contains watermarks which affect my reading so that I want to remove the watermarks. When I am about to remove a watermark in Adobe Acrobat, I get an error message that says 'You do not have sufficient permissions to perform this task'. Now, what can I do?'

In this situation, look at the title bar of the PDF document, you will find it is marked as SECURED. Then how can you remove watermark from a secured PDF document? Now, this article will show you how to do this.

How to remove watermark from a secured PDF document

Two steps are needed.

Step 1: Remove security from secured PDF document

In order that you can remove watermarks from the secured PDF document, your first task is to remove the security from the PDF document to make the document unsecured. So, just carry out these steps below.

1. Launch Adobe Acrobat and open the secured PDF document that contains watermarks.

2. Click File- / Properties on the menu bar.

Adobe acrobat x pro remove watermark windows 10

3. On the Document Properties dialog, click the Security tab, and then select No Security from the drop-down button next to Security Method. When you are asked for a Permissions Password, enter it in the box and click OK.

Tips: If you don’t know the password, you can remove or bypass the PDF Permissions password through Google Chrome, so that you can unsecured the secured PDF document.

4. Click OK when you are asked if you make sure to remove security. Click OK again.

5. Press Ctrl + S to save the PDF document to keep the changes.

Step 2: Remove watermark from PDF document using Adobe Acrobat

Now, the PDF document is not secured. You can remove the watermark with Adobe Acrobat. Steps are as follows.

1. Click Tools on the right of the toolbar to show Tools pane, and then expand the Pages pane. Locate the Edit Page Design section, click Watermark, and then hit Remove from the drop-down menu.

2. Click Yes when you are asked if you are sure to permanently remove the watermark.

3. Press Ctrl + S to save the PDF document to keep the changes.

Alternative: Remove watermark from PDF document using Microsoft Word

After you remove security from the secured PDF document, alternatively, you can remove the watermark with Microsoft Word. Steps are as follows.

1. Right-click on the PDF document, and then select Open with- / Microsoft Word.

2. After Microsoft Word starts, you will be prompted that the PDF file will be converted to an editable Word document. Click OK in the prompt dialog.

Note: Microsoft Word can’t convert a password protected PDF file to Word document, so it’s important to make sure the PDF file is not secured.

3. After opening the PDF file in Word, you can remove a text watermark, just need to double click on the text watermark to select it, and then delete it by pressing the Delete or Backspace key on your keyboard.

4. To remove image watermarks, click the Insert tab on the menu bar, then click the Header button, and then click Edit Header from the drop-down.

5. Click on the area of the image watermark to select it, and then remove it by pressing the Delete or Backspace key on your keyboard.

Adobe Acrobat X Pro Serial Number

6. After watermarks are removed, convert the Word document back to a PDF file. To do this, click the File tab on Microsoft Word menu bar, then on the Backstage, click Export; Create PDF/XPS Document; Create PDF/XPS.

7. On the 'Publish as PDF or XPS' dialog, select PDF, type a file name, select one destination, and then click the Publish button.

8. The Word document is converted back to a PDF file and the watermarks are gone.

In addition to above two practical methods, Photoshop or some third-party watermark remover software also could be used to remove printed watermarks from PDF document completely.

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