Tip of the Day – Excel 2007: How to Add a Watermark to a Spreadsheet

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Watermarks are very useful when documents need to be printed out in a secure manner.  Watermarks can describe confidentiality, intended recipients, and even the quality of the document, like a draft, so that the reader is fully aware of how the document should be interpreted.

Here’s a little bit of I little bit of trivia.  Hollywood writers use watermarks when giving out draft scripts to select individuals.  Writer literally “brand” the names of the reviewers on to the script so that if the script ever leaks or is copied, the writer know who to sue.  The moral of the story?  If you’re going to leak a watermarked document, make sure you a Photoshop expert on staff. :)

Creating a Watermark in Excel
To add a watermark at the top of your Microsoft Office Excel worksheet:

  1. In your Excel file, click Insert, and then in the Text section, click Header & Footer.
  2. With your pointer in the center section of the header, click Picture in the Header & Footer Elements section of the Design tab, browse your hard disk drive to find the picture you want, and then click OK.
  3. You may need to press ENTER several times to center the watermark on the page.