How do I remove watermark from PDF on a Windows PC?

One of the most efficient ways to remove all watermarks from PDF in 1-click:

https://www.ammdiy.com/remove-watermark-from-pdf-file

Using Inkscepe and Gh0stscript to remove watermarks from a PDF can be effective. But the whole process can be pretty time-consuming, especially if you’re dealing with a multi-page PDF. Each page opens individually in Inkscepe, so you have to manually delete the watermark on every single page. If you’ve got a lengthy tutorial, that can feel like a bit of a drag.

While Inkscepe is quite user-friendly, it does have a bit of a learning curve if you’re new to graphic editing software. You might need to spend some time getting used to how to navigate the program, select objects, and export your file back to PDF format. If you just want a quick fix, this can be frustrating.

As i know. Inkscepe is great for editing graphics, but it’s not the best for removing watermark from PDF. If the watermark is embedded in a way that affects the surrounding text, you might find that simply deleting the watermark also deletes or distorts some text. So, you’ll have to be careful and might need to do some additional manual fixes.

PyMuPDF brute force removal is a method exclusive to programmers, used to remove watermarks from PDF in batches. This method is relatively simple, using PyMuPDF (a Python library) to directly modify the text and graphic elements in the PDF file to achieve the effect of removing the watermark. This method is more "violent" because it directly operates the underlying content of the PDF, but for programmers, it can process files more flexibly and efficiently, especially suitable for batch processing of multiple files.

Install PyMuPDF: First, you need to install PyMuPDF in the Python environment. You can install it with the following command:

pip install pymupdf

Read PDF files and iterate through each page: Use PyMuPDF to read PDF files and iterate through each page to find and remove watermarks. Here is a simple Python script that shows how to remove PDF watermark and manipulate each page:

import fitz # How to import PyMuPDF

# Open a PDF file
doc = fitz.open("input.pdf")

# Loop through each page
for page_num in range(len(doc)):
page = doc.load_page(page_num)

# Find and clear the watermark content
# Assume the watermark is some text or a graphic object
for img in page.get_images(full=True):
xref = img[0]
page.delete_image(xref) # Delete the image watermark

# Delete the text watermark
blocks = page.get_text("dict")["blocks"]
for block in blocks:
if block["type"] == 0: # This is a text block
text = block["text"]
if "watermark" in text: # Assume the watermark text contains "watermark"
page.delete_text(block) # Delete the text block

# Save the modified PDF
doc.save("output.pdf")

The script works by going through each page and looking for watermark elements, then removing them. It targets two common watermark types: image watermarks and text watermarks. You can further adjust the code based on the specific watermark type.

Save the modified PDF file: Finally, the script saves the processed PDF file as a new file (output.pdf) to ensure that the original file is not overwritten.

Removing watermark from PDF can be tricky, especially if they were added intentionally by the creator. However, if you have legitimate reasons for wanting to remove watermarks (such as having the right to edit the content), there are a few options you could consider. Here are some free and open-source tools that may help you remove watermark from PDF on Windows 11/10 effectively while retaining the format:

1. Libre0ffice Draw
Libre0ffice is a free and open-source office suite that includes a tool called Draw that can be used for editing PDFs.

Steps to Remove Watermark:

1. Download and install Libre0ffice.
2. Open Libre0ffice Draw.
3. Import the PDF file: Go to File > Open and select your PDF.
4. Click on the watermark to select it. You can often delete it like any other object.
5. Save the file as a PDF: Go to File > Export As > Export as PDF.

2. PDFsem Basic
PDFsem (PDF Split and Merge) Basic is another free tool that allows for basic editing of PDFs. While it doesn't directly remove watermarks, you can extract pages without the watermark if you have an unwatermarked version.

1. Download and install PDFsem Basic.
2. Use the 'Split' or 'Merge' function to modify your document, which can help with re-arranging content if needed.

3. Inkscepe
Inkscepe is primarily a vector graphics editor, but it can also be used to edit PDFs.

Steps to Remove Watermark from PDF:

1. Open the PDF file in Inkscepe.
2. Select the watermark and delete it.
3. Save the PDF: Go to File > Save As and choose PDF.

4. PDF24 Creat0r
PDF24 Creat0r is a Windows application that allows various PDF manipulations.

Steps to Remove Watermark from PDF:

1. Download and install PDF24 Creat0r.
2. Open the program and import your PDF.
3. Use the editing tool to delete the watermark if possible.
4. Save your document.

I understand your problem. Watermarks really affect the reading experience, especially when learning programming. Fortunately, there are some free open source tools that can help you remove watermarks from PDF. I have tried a combination method before, which is to use Inksscape + Ghostsscript to remove PDF watermarks. The effect is pretty good. Let me briefly talk about this method.

1. First, you need to install these two tools on Windows 11/10:
2. Inksscape: It is a free vector graphics editing software that can be used to edit graphic elements in PDF files.
3. Ghostsscript : This is an open source PDF processing tool that can help you convert PDF to other formats and keep the format intact during the processing.
   Go to the official website (Ghostsscript official website) to download and install.
4. Open Inksscape, click File > Open, and select the PDF file with watermarks you downloaded.
   Inksscape will open each page as a graphic. Find the page you need to remove the watermark.
5. In Inksscape, you can directly select the watermark area and then delete it. The watermark is usually a separate layer or object, so just select it and delete it.
6. After deleting the watermark, you can select File > Save As to save the edited file in PDF format.
7. If you find that the PDF format has some problems after saving it with Inksscape (such as messed up layout), you can use Ghostsscript to fix it:
8. Open a command line window (press Win + R, enter cmd, and press Enter).
   Use the following command to repair the PDF file:

gswin64c -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf

Here input.pdf is your edited PDF file, and output.pdf is the final saved file name.

With this combination, you should be able to remove watermark from PDF while keeping the document format unchanged. Of course, this method may be a bit informal, but for informal needs, this is already a good solution.

PDFs come with watermarks and this is a common case as far as I know. Fortunately, there are many easy and free ways to remove watermarks from PDF files. Please don't do this with the PDF editor software, such as Adobe Acrobat. Here are the reasons:

1. Limited ability to deal with translucent watermarks
Adobe Acrobat's “Eraser” or “Marker Tool” is mainly designed for solid-color watermarks, if the watermark is a semi-transparent overlay layer, direct erasure will lead to the underlying text fuzzy or edge of the residual traces of the obvious. Professional watermarking tools can analyze the pixel transparency layer repair, which is difficult to achieve Acrobat.

2. Rely on manual operation and inefficient
If the document contains dozens of pages of watermarks, manually selecting the watermark area page by page will take a lot of time. In contrast, code-based automatic detection or batch processing tools can significantly improve efficiency, especially for batch processing of tutorials PDF documents.

3. Payment threshold and functional limitations
Adobe Acrobat's complete watermarking features are limited to paid subscription users (such as Acrobat Pro DC), while the free version of the function is severely limited. For programming enthusiasts, the use of open source libraries (such as pdfplumber + Pillow) or low-cost tools can meet the demand, but also to avoid paying for commercial software.

Please go with a more user-friendly and lightway solution to remove PDF watermarks on Windows PC.