Overlay PDF
Put a letterhead behind your pages, or a stamp over them.
Overlay PDF composes a second PDF onto your document: a letterhead UNDER the pages, so your text is painted over it, or a stamp OVER them. Choose every page, the first page only, or a range; scale the overlay to the page or keep its own size; and where the overlay has as many pages as the document, overlay it page for page. The document itself is not rebuilt, so its annotations, links, form fields and bookmarks are kept and the text in both layers stays selectable. Under cannot hide your text — the document is painted last, on top of the overlay. Over is the mode that covers: an overlay with an opaque background, such as a scanned letterhead, hides what is beneath it, and text it covers is still in the file rather than removed.
Overlay PDF composes one PDF onto another — a letterhead behind your pages, or a stamp over them — free, in your browser, with no account. Both files are read on your device and neither is uploaded. The document is not rebuilt, so it keeps its own annotations, links, form fields and bookmarks. Under paints the overlay first and your document over it; over paints the overlay last, so it covers what is beneath. Overlay PDF is one of UnboundPDF's 53 free browser-based PDF and image tools: it runs on your own device with no upload, no account and no watermark, and reports what it measured on the output.
How to use Overlay PDF — steps & common uses
What people use Overlay PDF for
People who already have a letterhead, stamp or template as a PDF and need it on a document they did not make in the same program.
- Put company letterhead behind a contract exported from a word processor
- Stamp DRAFT or COPY over every page of a review PDF
- Add a designed logo header to an invoice you already produced
- Put a printed form's background behind typed content
- Brand a report with a template made in a design tool
How to use Overlay PDF
- Drop in the document, then drop in the overlay — the letterhead, stamp or banner PDF.
- Choose under or over. Under is the letterhead case and is the default: the overlay is painted first and your text is painted over it.
- Choose which pages get it — every page, the first page only, or a range — and whether the overlay is scaled to the page or kept at its own size.
- Download, and open the first page to look at the result — under puts your document on top of the overlay, over puts the overlay on top of your document.
Good to know: An overlay with an opaque background hides what is under it; a born-digital letterhead usually lets the text through.
Questions about Overlay PDF 7
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. UnboundPDF processes PDFs locally in the browser — documents are not uploaded to a server. We have no backend that receives, stores, or scans your files.
Will an opaque letterhead hide my document?
Not in UNDER mode. There the overlay is painted first and your document is painted over it, so your text stays visible; what an opaque overlay covers in that mode is the page's own background. OVER is the mode that covers: a scanned letterhead is a photograph of paper and carries an opaque rectangle across the whole page, so used over a document it hides it. The mirror case is real too — if your document's pages are themselves full-page scans, they are opaque, so an under overlay ends up behind the scan and is not seen. A born-digital letterhead paints only its logo and rules and works either way round.
If an overlay covers text, is the text gone?
No. Covering is not removing. Text an overlay is painted over is still in the file: it can be selected, copied and searched, and any tool that extracts text will find it. Use Redact PDF when text has to be gone rather than hidden.
What is the difference between under and over?
Only the order in which the two layers are painted, and it is a real difference in the file rather than a label. Under paints the overlay first, so your document's text sits on top of it — the correct order for a letterhead. Over paints the overlay last, so it covers what is beneath — the order a COPY or DRAFT banner needs.
How is this different from Watermark PDF?
Watermark PDF draws text you type. Overlay PDF uses a PDF you already have, with whatever is in it — a logo, a letterhead's rules and addresses, a designed stamp, a form background. If what you want is a line of text at an angle, Watermark PDF is the simpler tool.
Can I use a multi-page overlay?
The overlay's first page is used on every selected page by default. When the overlay has exactly as many pages as the document, a page-for-page option appears: overlay page 1 on document page 1, page 2 on page 2, and so on.
Does the text stay selectable?
Yes, in both layers. The overlay is embedded as page content and drawn onto your existing pages, so nothing is rasterised and nothing is re-encoded. Text you could select before is still selectable, and text in the letterhead is selectable too.
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How your files are handled
The work runs on your own device, inside the browser tab — so there is no server to send your document to.
- Nothing is uploaded. We have no backend that receives or stores documents, so we cannot see your files during processing or after.
- Your device does the work. Large documents are handled in stages, pages are rendered as you reach them, and each job is checked against your device before it starts — so a long run takes longer on a phone than on a laptop, nothing is queued behind other people's jobs, and you can stop a run at any point without touching your original file.
- No account and no watermark. The output is a clean file you can use anywhere, with no sign-up and no hourly cap.
More edit tools
Other free PDF utilities that work the same way — in your browser, no sign-up.