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Oscard_3131's avatar
Oscard_3131
Copper Contributor
Mar 21, 2022

MS Word 2013 Watermark appears only when editing headers of footers

The watermark feature was working fine with Word 2013 until recently, although I cannot say when it started to fail. I noticed that any watermark I add to a document or template only shows in the pa...
Oscard_3131's avatar
Oscard_3131
Copper Contributor

Stefan_Blom, thanks for the response.
To answer your question, yes, the watermark does appear also when in print preview.

 

Before yesterday, I used the watermark several times when editing similar documents to differentiate between them.

 

Moreover, this problem is affecting other docs and templates that already had the watermark working correctly.

 

This problem seems to affect my copy of Word 2013 only because my two Word 2019 copies on two different PCS open the same documents and they show the watermark normally.

 

I wonder whether there is a settings file that resides somewhere in the affected PC that the online repair did not modify.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Stefan_Blom's avatar
Stefan_Blom
MVP
Mar 22, 2022

Oscard_3131 

 

When you are working with the document, ensure that you are in Print Layout view. 

 

If headers and footers are missing in that view, enable the option to show white space between pages at File > Options > Display: 

 

  • Oscard_3131's avatar
    Oscard_3131
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 22, 2022
    Stephan, that is always my configuration on all versions of MS Word I work with.
    In addition, I always work on Print Layout view and my documents always show the headers and footers.
    • Stefan_Blom's avatar
      Stefan_Blom
      MVP
      Mar 22, 2022

      Oscard_3131 

       

      Thanks for the follow-up. 

       

      Can you share a sample document where the watermarks behave in this strange manner?

      • Oscard_3131's avatar
        Oscard_3131
        Copper Contributor
        Mar 22, 2022

        Stefan_Blom

        Here you have the link to a test document that exhibits the mentioned problem with MS Word 2013 on one PC, but works fine with MS Word 2019 on another PC.

         

        http://www.gotnci.com/upload_files/Watermark_Test_Document_01.docx

         

        Strangely enough, when I took a screenshot of the document NOT showing the watermark, the resulting JPG image DID show the watermark, exactly as Print Preview does.

         

        I am pretty sure that the problem is some kind of corruption in some Word own file, but what do I know?

         

        Thanks,

         

        Oscar

         

         

         

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