Share via

No matter what I do, I cannot remove the watermark!

Anonymous
2017-01-10T04:51:52+00:00

I have a 416 page document. When I try to remove as instructed both from the design and insert menus, header and watermark, the watermark remains. Printed watermark says no watermark. It is still there. Is this designed to kill by frustration?

Tried clearing the header - there was nothing there & insert watermark remove watermark, nothing happened, watermark still there.

When I called the 800 number I was taken through the same steps I had been going through with the same results. I was told to post my question here.

How does one remove a watermark that will not go.?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 322.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-01-10T07:20:35+00:00

    When you access the header of the document, expand the Select drop down at the right hand end of the Home tab of the ribbon and select "Select Objects"  The mouse cursor will change to an arrow head and with that, you should be able to select the watermark that is in the Header and then press Delete.

    If you are still unable to do it, send me a copy of the document, referencing this thread in the covering email message, I will investigate the issue.

    500+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

3 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 322.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-03-29T21:22:46+00:00

    The method that I detailed can be used to remove the watermark.  However, in some instances, due to the presence of a number of Sections in the document that are created by the use of Continuous Section Breaks, it is not possible to use the Next button on the Header & Footer Tools>Design tab of the ribbon to move from the Header in one Section to that in the next, and it is necessary therefore to scroll through the document to reach the Header of the next Section in which the Watermark has been inserted.

    A copy of the docuement from which the Watermarks have been removed has been uploaded to the following folder of my OneDrive.

    https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmuIXmFDy-1azRlX2JBMPPp_Nb1x

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-03-29T19:03:12+00:00

    http://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3g4TzvH0vlANjA2ajgtMTYzSjQ

    Here is the file that will not let me remove the watermark, even after following instructions and moving it back to 2003 where the concept began, still can't get rid of the old watermark.

    Word 2016 is just frustrating and I've been using Word since Word Perfect was the leading word processor.  The only reason I'm staying with 16 is because it opens and saves .pdf files. Everything else so far is a nightmare. Things that use to be easy, like drop down menus and logical structure are gone. Something as simple as removing a watermark becomes a project.

    Any advice on how to remove the watermark from the above file is appreciated.

    Thank you.

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Stefan Blom 339.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-03-29T19:22:57+00:00

    The document was slow to open on my system, but you can run the following macro that deletes header contents. It's a bit of a brute force approach, of course, but you don't seem to have anything else in headers, except for the anchored watermarks, so you won't lose any data.

    You can test the macro on a copy of the document first, just to be sure.

    Sub DeleteHeaderContents()

    'Macro created by MVP Stefan Blom, March 2017

    Dim s As Section

    For Each s In ActiveDocument.Sections

    s.Headers(wdHeaderFooterEvenPages).Range.Text = ""

    s.Headers(wdHeaderFooterFirstPage).Range.Text = ""

    s.Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).Range.Text = ""

    Next s

    End Sub

    For installation instructions, see http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments