PDF Overlay
Draw one PDF over or under another. Free, and runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded, stored or sent to a server.
About PDF Overlay
Draws every page of one document onto every page of another. It is how a letterhead gets applied to a plain export, how a pre-printed form is combined with the data meant to sit in it, and how a background or a border is added to a document that was produced without one.
Over and under are genuinely different operations. Over is simple: the stamp is drawn onto the existing page, on top of its content. Under is not, because a page's content stream is already written and there is no safe way to insert at the beginning of it — so the document is rebuilt with the stamp painted first and each original page drawn over it as an embedded form. The result looks the way you expect; the file is a new one.
When the two documents have different page counts, the repeat setting decides what happens: cycle through the overlay again, hold its first or last page, or stop stamping. A one-page letterhead applied to a forty-page report is the common case, and any of the first three do the right thing for it.
Where it helps
- Both directions: over the content, or behind it.
- Handles documents of different lengths, with a choice of what to do when the overlay runs out.
- Opacity, for a background that must not compete with the text.
- Pages are embedded, not rasterised — both documents stay sharp and selectable.
- The files never leave your browser.
Limits
- An underlay rebuilds the document, so links, form fields and annotations on the base pages are not carried through.
- Scaling to fit is per page: a stamp of a different shape will be letterboxed rather than stretched.
- There is no offset control — the overlay is centred, so a stamp meant for a corner must be positioned in its own document.
- Two documents of the same length are matched page for page and cannot be offset by one.
- Password-protected files must be unlocked first.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between this and a watermark?
A watermark is text or an image this site draws for you. An overlay is a whole PDF you have already designed — with its own fonts, vectors and layout — applied to another. Use the watermark tool for a word; use this for artwork.
Why did my underlay lose the form fields?
Because an underlay has to rebuild the document: the page content is embedded into a new page, and annotations — form fields included — do not come along. Draw over instead, or flatten the form before overlaying.
Why is my overlay not landing where I placed it?
Turn off "scale it to the page". With scaling on, the overlay is resized to cover the page beneath, which moves everything on it.
Can I apply one page of the overlay to all pages?
Yes — a single-page overlay does that under any of the repeat settings. For a multi-page overlay, "keep using its first page" has the same effect.
Related tools
- Watermark PDF — Stamp text or a logo across a PDF's pages
- Merge PDF — Join several PDFs into one document
- Flatten PDF — Make form answers part of the page
- Fix Page Size — Put every page onto one uniform sheet
- Icon Font Generator — Build a web font from SVG icons or an SVG font
- Image Converter — Convert between PNG, JPEG, JFIF, WebP, GIF, HEIC and SVG
More Images & Files tools
- Icon Font Generator — Build a web font from SVG icons or an SVG font
- Image Converter — Convert between PNG, JPEG, JFIF, WebP, GIF, HEIC and SVG
- Image Resizer — Resize to a size, a proportion or a longest side
- Crop Image — Cut a rectangle out, or trim a flat border away
- Rotate Image — Turn by a right angle or any angle, and flip
- Image Base64 Converter — Turn an image into a data URI for CSS or HTML, and read one back
- WebP Converter — To WebP for the web, or back out of it
- SVG Converter — Draw an SVG at any size, or wrap a bitmap in one
- Background Remover — Take a flat background out and keep the subject
- Image Compressor — Resize and re-encode images to save bytes
- Image Optimizer — Strip metadata and redundant markup without touching the picture
- Favicon Generator — Build favicon PNGs and a multi-size .ico
- File Checksum — Verify a download, and work out which algorithm made the checksum
- QR & Barcode Reader — Read a code out of an image, and say what it does before you follow it
- MIME Detector — Identify a file from its magic bytes
- Office Password — Protect a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file with a password
- Office Password Remover — Remove the password from a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file
- Image Editor — Crop, straighten, adjust and cut out, with every step visible and reversible
- Passport Photo Maker — Passport and visa photos at each country's size, with head guides and a print sheet
- PDF Editor — Move and retype what is already on the page, reorder, annotate, stamp and sign, with the document in front of you
- PDF Viewer — Read, search and inspect a PDF without leaving the browser
- PDF Password & Permissions — Lock a PDF with AES-256, and say what a reader may print, copy or change
- PDF Password Remover — Strip the password from a PDF you can already open
- Merge PDF — Join several PDFs into one document
- Split PDF — Cut a PDF into separate documents
- Delete PDF Pages — Remove pages from a PDF and keep the rest
- Rearrange PDF Pages — Put a PDF's pages in a different order
- Rotate PDF — Turn a PDF's pages the right way up
- Compress PDF — Make a PDF smaller, by rebuilding it or redrawing it
- Watermark PDF — Stamp text or a logo across a PDF's pages
- Sign PDF — Put a signature and a date onto a PDF
- Edit PDF — Add text to a PDF page, and hide what is underneath
- PDF to Images — Turn every page into a PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF or JFIF
- OCR PDF — Read the text off a scanned PDF
- PDF to Word — Turn a PDF into an editable .docx that keeps its layout
- PDF to Excel — Pull a PDF's tables into a .xlsx workbook that keeps their formatting
- PDF to PowerPoint — Turn a PDF's pages into editable .pptx slides that look the same
- Word to PDF — Turn a .docx document into a PDF that looks the way it does in Word
- Excel to PDF — Print a .xlsx workbook to PDF with its formatting and page setup
- PowerPoint to PDF — Turn a .pptx deck into a PDF that looks the way the slides do
- Images to PDF — Turn photos or scans into one PDF document
- PDF to Text — Pull the text out of a PDF as plain text
- Crop PDF — Trim the margins off every page
- Page Numbers — Number the pages of a PDF
- Header & Footer — Put a running head or foot on every page
- Bates Numbering — Stamp sequential legal numbers across pages
- Reverse Pages — Flip a PDF's page order end to end
- Add Blank Pages — Insert empty pages anywhere in a PDF
- N-Up PDF — Put several pages on one sheet
- PDF Booklet — Reorder pages for folded booklet printing
- PDF Metadata — Read, change or strip a PDF's properties
- Flatten PDF — Make form answers part of the page
- Alternate & Mix Pages — Interleave two PDFs a page at a time
- Combine to Single Page — Stack every page into one continuous strip
- Divide Pages — Cut every page in half or into quarters
- Posterize PDF — Tile a large page across several printable sheets
- Fix Page Size — Put every page onto one uniform sheet
- Page Dimensions — Measure every page, its rotation and its sheet
- Rotate by Any Angle — Turn pages by a fraction of a degree or more
- Remove Annotations — Strip comments, highlights, links and stamps
- PDF Attachments — List, extract, add or remove embedded files
- PDFs to ZIP — Package several PDFs into one archive
- PDF Bookmarks — Read, write or remove a PDF's outline
- Table of Contents — Build a contents page from the bookmarks
- Page Labels — Number front matter in roman and the body in arabic
- Sanitize PDF — Strip scripts, actions, attachments and metadata
- Extract Images — Pull every embedded picture out of a PDF
- Extract Tables — Turn a PDF's tables into CSV, JSON or Markdown
- PDF to Markdown — Convert a PDF into Markdown with its headings, emphasis, lists, tables and pictures
- PDF to JSON — Export a PDF's text as structured JSON
- Compare PDFs — See which pages of two PDFs differ, and by how much
- Remove Blank Pages — Find the empty pages, and take them out
- Invert PDF Colours — A dark-mode version of a document
- PDF to Greyscale — Convert every page to shades of grey
- Adjust PDF Colours — Brightness, contrast and saturation across a document
- Scanner Effect — Make a clean PDF look like a photocopy
- PDF Background Colour — Tint the paper behind the content
- Rasterize PDF — Flatten every page into a picture of itself
- PDF to CBZ — Turn a PDF into a comic book archive
- CBZ to PDF — Turn a comic book archive into a PDF
- Text to PDF — Set a plain text file as a document
- Markdown to PDF — Set Markdown as it renders: headings, emphasis, lists, code, quotes and tables
- JSON to PDF — Print a JSON file as an indented tree
- CSV to PDF — Set a spreadsheet export as a printed table
- XML to PDF — Print an XML document as an indented tree