How to Insert Watermark in PowerPoint

By Swathi KrishnaPublished On: August 31st, 2022Categories: PowerPoint How To

When you have worked hard to create some content, whether it is a video, a blog, or a PowerPoint presentation, you wouldn’t want anyone to alter it, ruin it or steal it. Unlike Word documents, PowerPoint presentations don’t have much in the form of protection. One thing you can do is add a watermark in PowerPoint. A watermark helps to identify you as the owner of the content – and helps people to find you. A watermark in ppt is not easy to remove without damaging the image it is on. Adding a watermark in PowerPoint is useful if you’re planning on printing your PPT presentation or simply planning on sharing it as an uneditable presentation.

Now that we’ve seen what a watermark is and how useful it can be let us see how to create one for your presentations to protect them. A draft watermark in PowerPoint or a confidential stamp can be added to every slide in your presentation.

What is a watermark in PowerPoint?

A PowerPoint watermark is usually some faded text or a washed-out image that appears on every slide in the background of your content. You can mark every slide in your presentation for several reasons; for example, you can add either CONFIDENTIAL or DRAFT to your presentation if they’re not meant to be seen by everyone.

The thing to know when you add a watermark to PowerPoint is the exact place you add it so that you can ensure that all your slides have it automatically. It is important to remember that you should not try to add or update the watermark manually on every slide one by one. There are easier ways to go about that.

Two Factors to Consider About Your PowerPoint Watermark

Before we delve into creating and inserting a watermark in PowerPoint, we need to know two important things. Why are they important? Well, they will let you know where exactly to add your watermark and how you create it, as there are various methods in PowerPoint for doing it. It is, therefore, prudent to have a clear picture of what you want to create before spending time and effort on its creation.

1. How many slides do you want the watermark on?

Some presenters may want to watermark every slide in their presentation, while some others may want only a few slides. If you want all your slides watermarked, you need to add it to the Parent slide of the Slide Master, and if you want the watermark on a few specific slides, you need to add it only to the child slides in your PPT on which you want the watermark to be seen. Both these steps will be discussed in this article.

2. Editable or non-editable watermark?

In other words, would you want to edit your current watermark sometime soon? Depending on this, you will have to choose between adding a watermark as text to the slide or as an image in the slide’s background.

Where Should You Insert your Watermark in PowerPoint?

The Slide Master is where you should ideally create your PowerPoint watermark, no matter the type of watermark you want to make.

The advantage of adding it in the Slide Master is that, except in a few specific circumstances, the watermark will be displayed on all your slides in the presentation.

This means by simply adding it once, you can have the watermark displayed on all the slides of your presentation. Even if you edit or alter the watermark later, you only need to do it once, but it will be updated on every slide in the whole PowerPoint presentation.

Steps for opening the Slide Master in PowerPoint:

Go to the View tab
Click on Slide Master

Alternatively, you can click on the Normal icon (which lies at the base of your workspace in PowerPoint) while you hold the Shift key to go directly to Slide Master. This is a shortcut in PowerPoint that is not very widely known.

Holding Shift and clicking the Normal button on the bottom of PowerPoint opens the Slide Master view.

Let us now see how to insert a watermark in ppt. We can create either a text or picture watermark.

How to Create a Text Watermark in PowerPoint

Here are the steps for making a text watermark in PowerPoint and inserting it on your Parent slide:

Once in the Slide Master view, go to the Insert tab
Click on Text Box
Click on the slide
Type any text you wish to add as a watermark
Select the style, size, and color of the font you like
Drag the typed text to the location on the slide you want it to be.
Right-click on the text watermark and select Send Image to Back to ensure it stays in the background
You can also assign a very faint grey color to prevent the watermark from visually clashing with the content on the slides. (Home > Font > Colour)

Note: you will have to right-click on the very border of the Text Box for the Send to Back feature to appear. Or you can go to the Home tab > Arrange > Send to Back

This is how adding a DRAFT watermark in PowerPoint looks like in the Slide Master view.

Creating a Picture Watermark in PowerPoint

By creating and inserting an image as a watermark to your Parent slide, you can ensure that it cannot be edited later. You can insert a photo, your brand logo, or any image of your choice.

These are the steps you need to follow:

Open the Insert tab in Slide Master
Select Insert, and click on Pictures
Insert your logo or a photo of your choice
Drag the picture to where you want it to be displayed
Resize the image as per your requirement
Right-click on the image and select Send to Back to keep it in the background

Adding an image as watermark in PowerPoint looks like this in the Slide Master view

To Washout your picture Watermark, these are the steps to follow:

Select your image
Open the Picture Format tab
Choose the drop-down menu Colour
Go to Recolour, and select Washout or grey color

Select washout color to make watermark transparent in PowerPoint

Creating a Watermark That Cannot be Edited

You may want to make sure that nobody can edit your watermark. For this, you need to insert it into your slide as a slide background image. These are the steps to follow:

Press Ctrl + C to copy the elements to be added as your slide background watermark
On the slide’s edge, right-click and choose Format Background
Choose Picture or Texture Fill
Select Clipboard

Once you finish adding the image as the slide background image, if you want, you can delete the text or picture you originally used.

It is also possible to replicate your DRAFT watermarks and have many small-sized watermarks and insert all of them into the slide.

To adjust the lightness of the picture:

Open the Design tab
Go to the Format Background option on the extreme right side
From the drop-down menu, select ‘Picture or Text Fill’
Select the Transparency bar and slide it to the right to the extent you want.

Troubleshooting Your Watermarks

Problem: The watermark is not being displayed on all slides despite having added it correctly.

Reason: The Hide Background Graphics option may be inadvertently selected on some of the child slides.

Solution: Open Slide Master and unselect Hide Background Graphics on those slide layouts where the watermark is not getting displayed.

Hide background graphics in the Slide Master view if you cannot see the watermark in PowerPoint

How to Watermark Photographs in PowerPoint

Follow these steps:

Go to the Insert tab and choose Text Box or Photo
Insert the text or image you want as your watermark on the photo
Select the image while pressing down the Shift to select the watermark text/image
Press Ctrl + C so that both images get copied
Press Alt + Shift + V for Paste Special
Choose which format you want it in – JPEG or PNG
Select OK

PowerPoint generates one image using your original photograph and watermark – and your photo is watermarked.

Conclusion

And there you have it! You are now ready to create your very own watermarks to protect your PowerPoint presentations. You know how to insert a watermark in PPT; just remember that you must go to Slide Master to create the watermark. This will help you to ensure uniform watermarking of all your slides in your PowerPoint presentation.