Add a watermark to a sheet in Excel for Mac

You can add a watermark to your Excel sheet printout that reads, for example, "Draft" or "Confidential." However, there is no Watermark button for this feature in Excel for Mac.

Instead, you can follow the steps below:

Change your view

1. On the View tab, click Page Layout. Page Layout view is helpful because you can easily see the margins of each printed page.

Create a watermark text box

1. On the Insert tab, click the WordArt button, and then choose this option:

   

2. In the text box, enter "Confidential" or any of your own text in place of Your Text Here.

3. Rotate and move the watermark as you see fit.

Change the transparency settings for the watermark

Most likely the text in the watermark overlaps some of your data, making it hard to see. To fix this, you can change the transparency of the watermark so that the data can be seen through the watermark.

1. Control-click the WordArt text box, then select Format Shape.
   The Format Shape task pane appears on the right side.

2. Select the Text Options tab.

   

3. Under Text Fill, find the Transparency slider.

4. Change the Transparency slider to 50% or more.

5. Close the Format Shape task pane.

Copy and paste the watermark

If your workbook has more than one page, you can copy and paste the watermark to other pages by doing the following:

1. Select the watermark text box.
2. Press + C.
3. Select a location on another printed page of the worksheet.
4. Press + V.
5. Reposition the watermark if it's not placed in the exact spot you want.
6. On the View tab, click Normal to continue working in Normal view.