How do I create a watermark for a SOLIDWORKS drawing?

Many companies are trying to reduce the amount of paper drawings that are printed, some may even have terminals on the shop floor that allow access to drawings. There are still many consumers of drawings that like to hold that paper copy in their hands and in order to do this, you need the consumer to print their own drawings or be given a printed drawing. The problem is once printed, you lose traceability of how many were printed and what version. I have even seen where shop floor consumers just store the drawing away in their desk to be used next time. This could potentially become a problem. Simply put, you need a quick and highly visible way of identifying a drawing’s information. One solution to help aid in understanding which version or what stage in the process a drawing is at is to use a watermark.

If you have never used or seen a watermark, it is a faint design in the paper typically in different shades of darkness.

So you want to leave your watermark on SOLIDWORKS Drawings? Well you’re in luck! The process is very simple and easy to implement, as you can see below.  Once you start using watermarks, you’ll have the ability to automate when they change by using SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM.

Here are the steps to creating a watermark on a SOLIDWORKS Drawing:

Step 1: Open your Drawing template

Step 2: Go to File, Properties and add a property called "watermark".

Make sure to type in a value for setup purposes.  A suggestion would be to type in "WATERMARK" as the Value.

Step 3. Edit the Sheet format and add a note linked to current Document property “Watermark.”

Step 4. Set Font, Color, Text Position and Rotation of Note.

Step 5. Right click on your Note and select ”Display Note Behind sheet.”

Step 6. Delete the custom property value and save the template.

Your template is now setup to include a watermark. Notice the watermark shows behind the drawing view. This watermark can be used for all sorts of things. You could change the property to a date, so you know exactly when the drawing was printed. You could change it to "RELEASED", so everyone knows its a released drawing. There are many values that make sense, so give it a try.

Remember, if you want to automate the changing of this property through your workflow process, you can do that with SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM.