4 Free Methods to Remove Watermarks From PDFs

PDFs are useful, but they’re also notoriously difficult to edit without expensive software. You don’t have to keep distracting watermarks on your PDFs, however: with these free tools, you can remove a watermark from any PDF with just a few clicks.

How to Remove Watermark From PDFs Using Canva

Canva is a powerful online tool that is ideal for creating presentations and graphics, but it’s also capable of removing watermarks from PDFs (and will do so at no cost). To remove watermarks from PDFs using Canva, you can take the following steps:

1. Create a free Canva account or log in to your existing account. If prompted, you do not need to buy any subscriptions—basic PDF editing is completely free.
2. Next, upload your watermarked PDF by clicking on Create a design and then selecting Import file.
3. After your PDF finishes uploading, you can click on it to open it in Canva’s built-in editor.
4. Click on the watermark to select it.
5. Press your Backspace key to remove the watermark. If you accidentally removed the wrong object, you can press Ctrl + Z to undo your last edit and try again.
6. When you’re finished removing watermarks from your PDF, click Share at the top right corner of your screen.
7. Select Download, and then choose PDF Standard from the File type drop-down menu to ensure your PDF downloads properly.
8. Finally, click on the Download button to get your watermark-free PDF.

How to Remove Watermark From PDFs Using Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word-processing tools on the planet. You can also remove watermarks from PDFs using Microsoft Word. It is super easy and straightforward.

1. Launch Microsoft Word and click Open.
2. Select the PDF document and click Ok when the dialog box appears. This will convert the PDF document into a Word doc.
3. If you want to edit or delete the watermark letter by letter, simply click on any letter and press Delete.
4. Otherwise, click on any portion of the page outside the watermark. This will select the entire page.
5. Now, press Delete to remove the entire watermark at once.
6. When done, simply press Ctrl + S and save your watermark-free document.

How to Remove Watermark From PDFs Using Google Docs

If you’re looking for an alternative to web tools like Canva, Google Docs is a great fit, but you’ll need to convert your PDF to a DOCX file before it can be uploaded and rendered properly in Google Docs.

That’s where Adobe Acrobat’s online PDF to DOCX conversion tool becomes useful. Before you open Google Docs, you will need to upload your PDF to the Adobe website, sign in, and download your new DOCX using the download button at the top right corner of the screen.

Now that you’ve prepared your file, here’s how you can remove watermarks from PDFs in Google Docs:

1. Sign in to your Google Drive account and click on the + New button.
2. Click on File Upload and select the watermarked DOCX file.
3. You’ll see an “…upload complete” notification in the bottom-right corner of your screen. Click on the filename.
4. If the file doesn’t automatically open, click on the Open with drop-down at the top of the page and then select Google Docs.
5. If the watermark is not automatically removed, select it and press Delete on your keyboard.
6. Click on File, select Download, then click on PDF Document, and your watermark-free PDF will be saved to your computer.

If a PDF file is encrypted, you’ll need to unlock it before you can remove the watermark.

How to Remove Watermark From PDFs Offline Using PDFGear

If you want to remove watermarks from PDFs without an internet connection or Microsoft suite products, your best bet might be PDFGear. While the mobile versions of this application are limited, you can remove watermarks from PDFs for free using PDFGear on Windows or MacOS.

1. After running the installer from the PDFGear website, you can remove watermarks from PDFs by taking the following steps:
2. Open PDFGear, click Open File, and select your PDF from the file explorer to open it.
3. Select the Edit tab.
4. Click on the drop-down Watermark menu, and select Delete Watermark.
5. Click Yes when prompted, and PDFGear will attempt to remove the watermark from your PDF.
6. Finally, tap Ctrl + Shift + S simultaneously to save your edited PDF as a new file.

PDFGear isn’t always successful at removing watermarks. It’s useful when you don’t have internet, but tools like Canva are generally more reliable.

There are hundreds of PDF editors available for you to choose from, and you may need to search before you find the best one for you. Once you find a reliable PDF editor, you’ll find that frustrating tasks like removing watermarks become one of the easiest parts of your day.