Using an existing image as a watermark

[Coleen]

Hi All

I've done a couple of searches but don't see anything on what I wan to do so here goes:

I have an image I need to use as a background/watermark image. The image is in color but needs to be a black & white watermark behind a lot of text on a PDF document I'm creating in Xara Designer Pro 7 (I know I need to upgrade and will as soon as I can afford to) but in the mean time can any one tell me if or where there are any examples or info on how to do this?

Thanks!

[dutchim]

You could reduce the color saturation with the photo tool to make it grayscale.

Then use the transparency tool to make it barely visible and place it behind the text.

You might want to make a bitmap copy of all the text and watermark behind it when exporting as a PDF.

PDF's can easily be imported in software and the text extracted.

[UnmeteredIIS]

OP,

You really should invest some $$$... that version is way outdated!

here ya' go (was 2000x2000 but upload reduced it)...

[gwpriester]

Coleen, you can reduce the saturation for the image in DPX7 just time. Then make the image about 80-90% Flat, Mix transparency.

[Coleen]

Thank you both for the responses and the work - it is greatly appreciated!

I was able to figure out how t use the transparency to create the proper "watermark" transparency, and embed that as a background image/layer. Thank you very much!

UnmeteredIIS - I really do plan on updating as soon as I possibly can afford to. Unfortunately, I am flat broke! (sigh) so, all upgrades are on hold until I get a little extra money.

I do have 1 more question - not about Watermark's but about .PDF's. Is there a way to include all of my pages (which are of different page orientations) into ONE document so I can export the entire thing as a single 6 page PDF? The issue is that since the first two pages are Portrait, and the next two are Landscape, and the last two are again portrait, I ended up creating 3 different (2 page) documents. I was able to successfully export each set of pages in PDF format, but in order to combine all three into one complete PDF document, I am uncertain how to do that. Any advice or suggestions?

Thanks again for all the help!

[siran]

I don't remember V7 but that surely is possible in V10. Check the page options dialog for the 'All pages in document the same' option. If V7 has the option then after disabling it you can modify every page individually. The exported PDF displayed correctly in my test.

[EJ]

Coleen,
There are quite a few free programs that will take multiple PDFs and combine them into one. I have used stand alone ones quite a few times but have never been happy with online ones.

Let me know if you have trouble getting one and I'll hunt mine up. It's been a while since I used it but it was fast. You can change the order of joining and I'm pretty sure it will handle landscape and portrait in the sam epdf.

cheers,
Erik