Watermark in Autocad printout

I had a quick go (in ACAD2000), and this should work:

Create a new layer in your drawing blank - call it WATERMARK if you like, to keep track of it. Select a suitable colour (very light grey, for example) and type the company's name. Lock the layer. Done!

In addition to the light grey colour, another watermark colour you may wish to try is a light yellow ink. Certain yellow inks and dyes fluoresce under blue light. If you wish the watermark to be faint under ordinary incandescent or fluorescent light, but to show up vividly under a deep blue light, use a yellow ink. As I cannot guarantee that all yellow inks have this property, you can test yours simply enough by shining one of those inexpensive blue LED keychain torches on the ink reservoir (if it is transparent or translucent) or on a printed sample. If the ink glows bright yellow, you're home free.

To make your watermark even less discernable under ordinary lighting, use a pattern of small dots to make your watermark and space the dots far enough apart so that very little colour is concentrated in any given area. You may elect to use a large watermark to ensure a low dot density; including one that may cover the entire sheet.

You may also find it convenient to encode certain kinds of information on your document as dot patterns and include this information along with your watermark. Such might be the printer serial number, document number, revision number, contract number, date and time, filename, author, and any other information you consider important. This information may be in plaintext or it may be encrypted.

Binary patterns work well for many applications, but other encoding schemes may be preferable, depending on your needs. If it is desired to obfuscate certain information from unwelcome eyes, you may elect to use secure ciphers and print them as apparently (to others) random dot patterns across the sheet. This technique is called steganography.

If you find such information-hiding techniques intriguing and would like to learn more, google the word. Alternatively, Wikipedia does a nice job of explaining steganography along with a little bit of historical background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

Another link leading to papers and books covering steganography and digital watermarking specifically: http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/

Many thanks to Edwin and responders for this very well written, concise, and informative thread!

Hi Sir/Madam, thanks for the information.

Hi JohnDG, thank you for the information.

IF you simply wish to have a company logo or name as part of the border for each drawing when plotted, all you need to do is create border in "Paperspace" on the Layout tab.

All of the drawing is done in Model space (the "model" tab) at actual size.

The viewport scale you use determines how large the drawing will plot, at whatever scale you choose to use, and the border will plot, which of course includes your company name.

CADALYST magazine has several articles on techniques for using paperspace and xref's for various reasons - I xref a common border into paperspace (the layout tab) for every drawing. That way, if I need to change the border for that project, EVERY drawing in that project automatically reflects that border change.

In addition, if you simply wish to have some logo print across the middle of a page that you are releasing electronically, and wish the viewer to have a large "watermark" plot across the page if he tries to print it, then create that "watermark" graphic, really big, and keep that in paperspace on a new tab, so it's not in your way while you work in model space.

Then, when you wish to release the non-clearly-printable-without-the-watermark version electronically, simply use File-Publish and select that same layout tab as the source of a .DWF format file. Anyone can view it, it's small, and it's basically a "snapshot" of whatever tab you select...including your "watermark" graphic, if you have that layer turned on at the time.

Hi Sandman, thanks for the information.