2 ways to insert and remove DRAFT Watermark in Word

A draft watermark is shows that a document is just a preliminary version.

In the previous article, I write about how to add and delete watermarks in General from the pages of your Word document.

In today’s guide, I’ll show you two different ways to insert a specific watermark, which is a draft watermark in Microsoft Word.

Without any further ado, let’s get started.

Two ways to insert draft watermark in Word

There are two different ways you can use to insert this watermark in Word.

These options are discussed below:

Option 1: Using the Preset Watermarks

Word has few preset watermarks that you can insert with just a few clicks. Some of these preset watermarks include the DRAFT watermark, CONFIDENTIAL watermark AND DO NOT COPY watermark.

To insert any of these, especially the DRAFT watermark, obey the following instructions:

Step 1: Click on the Design tab.

Step 2: In the Page Background category, click on the Watermark drop-down button.
Step 3: All the available pre-maid watermarks will appear on the drop-down menu. Skim through these pre-made options and select the DRAFT option.

As soon as you click on the draft option, a “DRAFT” watermark with gray diagonal or horizontal text will apply to all the pages in your document.

Option 2: Custom Watermark

The first option appears to be the simplest method for this task. With just a few clicks you can get a beautifully applied DRAFT watermark throughout your document.

However, with some extra more work, you can also manually insert the draft watermark into your Word document. This option gives you more control to customize exactly how you want the text to look on your pages.

Let’s see how this works:

Go to the Design tab.

In the Page Background category, select the Watermark drop-down button to display the drop-down menu.
Click on the Custom Watermark… option to launch the Printed Watermark dialog box.
Select the Text watermark option to activate the controls under it.
In the Text: field, type DRAFT.

You can stop here and click on the apply button to insert the DRAFT watermark throughout the pages in your Word document.
However, you can apply more settings by changing the Font type, Font color or font size. You can also set the text layout to either Diagonal or Horizontal.

These are the two options available for this task. If you are on Mac, the next section will help.

Adding draft Watermark in Word for Mac users

The steps to add this watermark in Word for Windows differ slightly when you are using the Mac version of Word.

Thus, to add a draft watermark in Word for Mac, launch your Mac version of Word, go to the Design tab and click on the Watermark button to launch the Insert Watermark dialog box. Select the Text option and type in DRAFT in the text field, apply all the necessary settings using the available controls, then click on the OK button.

As an additional benefit, let me quickly show you how to remove the DRAFT watermark from your Word document.

Remove draft watermark in word

There are several ways you can get rid of the Draft watermark from your Word document. However, I’ll show you the two easy methods for this task.

Option 1

To remove draft watermark in Word, go to the Design tab, in the Page Background category, click on the Watermark drop-down button. From the Drop-down menu that appears, select the Remove Watermark link to delete it from your document.

Option 2

The other option involves launching the Printed Watermark dialog box and removing it from there. Just obey the following instructions.

On the Design tab, go to the Page Background category and select the watermark button. Click on the Custom Watermark link to launch the Printed Watermark dialog box. On this dialog box, select the No Watermark option and click on the Apply button to remove the watermark from your Word document.