DRAFT watermark

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ajturnersurrey
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 346
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 3:30 am

DRAFT watermark

Post by ajturnersurrey »

Can anyone suggest a good technique for inserting a watermark in a document? I just want the word DRAFT.

My previous technique worked fine with a plain background but not over text.

I had a decoration frame in my page layout, created a graphic with the necessary degree of transparency and made that a snippet so that it was scaled appropriately, then inserted the snippet as my frame text in the page layout. But this gives me a white block obscuring text behind.

I have tried making the snippet just using text, so that I can make the background transparent ... but still the letters of DRAFT themselves have no transparency, so still obscure the text too much (see attachment).
screengrab.png
Can anyone suggest any alternatives?
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lacastle
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by lacastle »

here are some other topics about watermarks - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe ... tnG=Search

and one solution:
One thing you could do is make a watermark, at least when the content is being printed. You could make a graphic with faint gray text with your company name in it, then use set that graphic as the background image for the body tag in your print medium. You'll probably want to have it repeat the image, so you might want to have some extra white in your graphic around the text so the watermark doesn't end up having a close wallpaper effect. Maybe make the image 3" x 3" or something like that. That won't save you from screen captures, unless you also add the watermark to your default medium for online outputs.
by the way, Word doesn't usually accept background images. :(
NorthEast
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by NorthEast »

I'd suggest creating a 'draft' image, then applying that to the page background on a page layout.
Then it's just a case of choosing a 'draft' or your normal page layout in the target.

I don't think either method will work for Word; although it's easy to add one in Word as it has a watermark feature.
ajturnersurrey
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by ajturnersurrey »

Thank you - the image as a page layout > page > background approach worked well for me.
sdcinvan
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by sdcinvan »

This thread was from three years ago.

As far as I know, Flare STILL doesn't have a watermark feature that can be easily toggled on/off.

Am I the only one (or one of very few) that absolutely requires such a feature? Now that all my documents are using Global Project Linking, this watermark issue has become a big annoying headache. :( Of course, unless I am missing something. I would love to be wrong about this.

I'll post a new thread about this in a while.
Shawn in Vancouver, Canada
Main tools used: Flare 11.x, InDesign, Google Docs, Lectora, Captivate.
Report bugs: https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback/bugs.aspx ▪ Feature requests: https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx[/i]
cdiamond
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by cdiamond »

I would like to see a feature just allowed us to define a watermark under the PDF Options setting in the target, too. This is a LOT of work for a DRAFT watermark.

What I did...

For book pages:
  1. Created a watermark DRAFT png file.
  2. Copied the set of .flpgl pages that I use for my books (Chapter_UG.flpgl) and created an additional set (DRAFT_Chapter_UG.flpgl) with the DRAFT watermark set as the background image on all layout pages.
  3. In the User Guide target, changed the master page layout to point to the DRAFT Page Layout set (.flpgl file).
For the title page:
  1. Created an alternative background image for the title page that includes a DRAFT watermark as well as our logo.
  2. Created a DRAFT_Title.flpg with that image set as the background image.
  3. Copied the Title_UG.htm in the Print Only Topics directory and created a Title_UG_DRAFT.htm that uses the DRAFT_Title.flpg with the DRAFT watermark.
  4. In the UG TOC, replaced the Title_UG.htm with the Title_UG_DRAFT.htm.
Built the target.
Results: The title page has the DRAFT watermark, but none of the other book pages did.

After all that, I remembered that the file properties of all topics in the TOC are what determine the page layout the pages, not the target. So, I edited the file properties of the chapter topics in the TOC to refer to "default," which points to the target setting, instead of a specific, named page layout. This did not impact the Page Type selection of "First Right," which is good.

Results: It worked. The title page has the DRAFT watermark and all the other book pages did, too.

Alternatively, I could have renamed my page layout flpgl files:
  • Rename Chapter_UG.flpgl to Chapter_UG_FINAL.flpgl -- being careful to NOT update links.
  • Rename the DRAFT_Chapter_UG.flpgl files to Chapter_UG.flpgl, also NOT updating links.
Still, I agree that this should be easier to do in Flare. It would be nice if it were something we could simply manage from the Target at build time.
Jeong
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by Jeong »

In case anyone still ends up here from 2021...
MadCap documentation describes a simpler method: Create an alternate stylesheet and add the background image to the <body> selector.
kel322
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Re: DRAFT watermark

Post by kel322 »

In case this helps anyone:
I was looking into creating a watermark for our online output only for some pages. I didn't want to create a separate stylesheet and deal with attaching it to some pages and not others (mostly because I find that difficult to track / remember down the road). I ended up creating a div and adding that to the pages I wanted the watermark. This also allows me to condition that specific div.

The CSS I used was:

Code: Select all

.watermark-container 
{
position: relative;
width: 100%; 
height:100%;
}
.watermark-container__wrapper 
{
position:absolute;
top:20px;
margin:auto;
width: 90%;
text-align: center;
transform: rotate(-45deg);
}

.watermark-container p
{ 
color: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.1);
font-size: 3rem;
font-weight: bold;
text-transform: uppercase;
user-select: none;
}
Your HTML will look something like this:

Code: Select all

 <div class="watermark-container">
            <div class="watermark-container__wrapper">
                <p>Your</p>
                <p>Watermark</p>
                <p>Text</p>
            </div>
        </div>
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