Writer: How may I remove a watermark, not just turn text color white or 100% transparent? Format Watermark has no delete option

[Colgate]

LibreOffice/help/en-US/text/swriter/01/watermark.html

[ajlittoz]

You are encouraged to improve your question formatting: edit both the title and its description.

• The title should be short. Keep “Writer: How may I remove a watermark?”

• The description is there to explain the purpose of the question and give all additional detail helping a contributor to understand the context and your present procedure.

  Copy everything in the title after word “watermark”. Add your OS name and LO version.

There two different edit links, one next to each part of the question.

[Colgate]

I would have never guessed how to do this. Many thanks for these two techniques!

[ajlittoz]

You’re welcome. Take some time to improve your question presentation.

[ajlittoz]

Format>Watermark is a kind of macro which modifies your document in several ways:

1. It creates a header if there is none yet and inserts a drawing object in this header

   Solution 1: if you have no use for a header, Format>Page Style, Header tab and uncheck Header on

   In case you have several page styles, use the side style pane (style page view) to apply this change to the relevant page style.

   But usually, when you need a watermark, you also have a custom header.

2. A drawing object is created and anchored to the first header paragraph

   Solution 2: use the Navigator (F5); expand the Drawing objects category and double-click on the water mark object (names PowerPlusWatermarkObject) to select it in the main part of the window. Hit Del to delete it.

   Note: apparently the maco creates several PowerPlusWatermarkObject 's which names are dimmed. These extra objects are “hidden” and I could not find a way to get rid of them.

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In case you need clarification, edit your question (not an answer) or comment the relevant answer.

[mikekaganski]

And 3. If the watermark text is empty, it removes the watermark (the drawing object). The header is not removed, though (the user could had added something, or formatted, etc.).

Re: “These extra objects are “hidden” and I could not find a way to get rid of them”: sorry, overlooked that. Those objects are the watermarks added to all the page styles in the document - dimmed ones are for the page styles not (yet) used in this document. Of course, the #3 above takes care of them.

[ajlittoz]

@Mike2 Kanganski: this confirms that Format>Watermark is a macro. Does the #3 also removes the watermark in the unused page styles? If so, how can we set a watermark on a single page style with the Format>Watermark command?

[mikekaganski]

this confirms that Format>Watermark is a macro

Well - not, of course it’s not a macro

Does the #3 also removes the watermark in the unused page styles?

Citing myself: “Of course, the #3 above takes care of them”.

If so, how can we set a watermark on a single page style with the Format>Watermark command?

No such function. Watermark as it’s implemented only adds it to all styles (i.e., making sure that all pages of the document have the watermark). You may add your own object (e.g., fontwork) to a chosen style manually.

[ajlittoz]

Well - not, of course it’s not a macro

Indeed, I won’t find it in the macro list but it behaves the same. I think it is the same kind of implementation as the badly-named “table styles”.

[ajlittoz]

@mikekaganski: thanks to your comments, I found a workaround to avoid the manual tedious task for single-page style watermark:

1. Format>Watermark, all page styles are watermarked
2. in the Navigator, I double-click on the PowerPlusWaterMarkObject I am interested in, it is now selected
3. Format>Name to change its name to a user-meaningful one
4. IMPORTANT: deselect the drawing object otherwise weird things happen
5. Format>Watermark again to remove the watermark with an empty content

The procedure is a bit contorted but it works as a substitute for a fully manual process. The biggest inconvenient for me is that not yet used page styles are modified after the round trip: a header with 0-cm separation from the text composition area (instead of the default 0.5 cm) is added everywhere. The page styles must be reviewed to check this parameter.