Adding watermarks to documents

A watermark is a faint design appearing in the background of a page. A watermark typically identifies or decorates pages, and it can be either text or an image. Examples include the word "Confidential" stamped on every page or a business logo appearing in the background of every page of the document. For examples of both text and image watermarks, see the Document Creation Help.

A watermark appears behind everything else on a document. You can think of a document that has a watermark as special paper that already has text or an image printed on it. Whatever objects that you add to the watermarked document appear on top of the watermark. Therefore, any object that is not transparent prints over or hides the watermark. For example, a watermark displays behind part of a Grid/Graph, if the Grid/Graph's background is transparent. The watermark is hidden beneath the cells of a Grid/Graph because the cells are not transparent. For a more detailed discussion of Grid/Graph formatting, including an example of the background vs. cells, see Formatting Grid/Graphs.

Watermarks are displayed in PDF View only; they are not shown in any other views or modes in MicroStrategy Developer and MicroStrategy Web.

The watermark appears on every page of the document. If the document contains multiple layouts, the watermark appears on every page of every layout.

Watermarks are displayed within the margins of the document; they do not extend to the edge of the page. To fit within the margins, watermarks are adjusted automatically:

For a text watermark, the text is automatically cropped if it extends past the document margins.
For an image watermark, the image is automatically centered on the page. As with images placed elsewhere on a document, the image file must be stored so that it is available to both the Intelligence Server and to the designers of the document. For details, see Adding images to documents.

You can wash out a text watermark in MicroStrategy, which fades the text to ensure that the document information is legible through the watermark. To achieve the same result with an image watermark, create the image using faded or dim colors.

Project watermarks vs. document watermarks

You can define watermarks at both the project level and the document level.

A project watermark allows you to have the same watermark, such as a business logo, on every document in the project. A project watermark is also applied to reports when they are exported to PDF.
A document watermark allows specific documents to have an individual watermark.

By default, document watermarks are enabled and overwrite the project watermark. However, until you create a document watermark, the project watermark, if any, is used on the document. If document watermarks are disabled, then the project watermark, if it is defined, is always displayed.

This flexibility allows you to create a variety of different watermarks for different purposes. For example, most documents display your business logo; however, internal documents need to be marked "Confidential". Since a project watermark is overwritten by a document watermark by default, create a project watermark that uses the logo. By default, document watermarks overwrite project watermarks, so do not change that setting. Next, for each internal document, create a document watermark with the text "Confidential". For instructions, see Creating the project watermark and Creating document watermarks.

In a different scenario, all documents from a particular project must be marked "Confidential". To do this, create a project watermark with the text "Confidential". Since you do not ever want this project watermark to be overwritten, disable document watermarks. (By default, document watermarks are enabled and overwrite the project watermark.) For instructions, see Creating the project watermark and Disabling document watermarks.

If the project has a watermark but you do not want to display any watermark on a specific document, allow document watermarks to overwrite the project watermark and set that specific document's watermark to no watermark. For instructions, see Hiding a project watermark for a specific document.

If you do not want to allow any watermarks on any documents, disable watermarks. To do this, set the project watermark to no watermark and disable document watermarks. For instructions, see Disabling all watermarks.

You can create project watermarks and allow the use of document watermarks from MicroStrategy Developer, not in MicroStrategy Web. The settings are applied to documents displayed in both MicroStrategy Developer and MicroStrategy Web, however. You can create and display document watermarks in MicroStrategy Web as well as in MicroStrategy Developer.

The following table describes how to achieve various results.

Document Results	Project-Level Settings	Document-Level Settings
All documents in the project display the same watermark	Define the project watermark Clear the Allow documents to overwrite this watermark check box	Unavailable
Most documents display the same watermark All other documents do not display a watermark	Define the project watermark Select the Allow documents to overwrite this watermark check box	For documents that display a watermark, select Use project watermark For documents without watermarks, select No watermark
Specific documents have individual watermarks All other documents display the same watermark	Define the project watermark Select the Allow documents to overwrite this watermark check box	For the specific documents, define the document watermark For other documents, select Use project watermark
Specific documents have individual watermarks All other documents do not display a watermark	Select No watermark Select the Allow documents to overwrite this watermark check box	For the specific documents, define the document watermark For other documents, select Use project watermark
Each document has an individual watermark	Select No watermark Select the Allow documents to overwrite this watermark check box	Define a document watermark for each document
No documents display a watermark	Select No watermark Clear the Allow documents to overwrite this watermark check box	Unavailable

Adding watermarks to documents

Project watermarks vs. document watermarks

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