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Add a background or watermark in Visio

Add a background when you want the same graphical elements, such as a watermark, to appear on more than one drawing page.

  1. On the Design tab, in the Backgrounds group, click Backgrounds or Borders & Titles.
    Backgrounds group in Visio

  2. Click an item in the gallery to add a background page to the document.

The new background page is automatically assigned to the page that you had open.

When you assign a background to a foreground page, the shapes on the background are visible when you look at the foreground page. Open the background page to edit the background page shapes.

Note: Find the background as a page tab below the drawing, called VBackground-1.
Background tab in Visio

Delete a background from a page

To remove the background from a page, open that page in the diagram, select Design > Backgrounds, and then select the No Background option. 

Change a foreground page into a background page

  1. Right-click the page tab, click Page Setup, and then click the Page Properties tab.

  2. Next to Type, select Background.

You can now use the page as a background for other pages.

Add an existing background to a page

  1. On the page to which you want to assign the background, right-click the page tab, click Page Setup, and then click the Page Properties tab.

  2. In the Background list, click the name of the background page that you want to assign, and then click OK.

    The background appears behind the shapes on the foreground page.

Add a watermark to a page

  1. On the page to which you want to assign a watermark, click Design, click Background, and select a background image.

  2. Right-click the page tab, click Page Setup, and then click the Page Properties tab.

    Next to Type, select Background, rename to "watermark" and click OK.

  3. Click the page tab watermark to display the drawing window, and click Insert Text Box. Here you can enter any text that you want to appear behind your foreground page, for example, "draft" or "confidential." You can resize and rotate the text to position so that it's visible when you view the foreground page.

    The new background page named watermark is automatically assigned to the page that you had open and your watermark appears behind any shapes on the foreground page.

Edit a background or watermark

You can edit the shapes on a background page only by going to the background page in the diagram and editing it directly. You can’t edit the shapes if you’re looking at a foreground page, even though you can see the shapes that are on the background page.

  1. Click the background page tab to display that background in the drawing window.

  2. Edit the shapes and text on the page.

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