What Are PDF Stamps? Rubber Stamp Annotations Explained
PDF stamp annotations overlay named graphics (Approved, Draft, Confidential) or custom images on pages. Learn how they work, how to create them, and how they differ from watermarks.
A PDF stamp annotation is a named graphic placed on a PDF page — like a rubber stamp impression. Stamps are a subtype of PDF annotation: they're stored separately from the page content stream, can be moved, resized, and deleted, and appear in the Annotations panel. Common stamps include "Approved," "Draft," "Confidential," "Received," and "Reviewed" — and any of these can be customized.
Built-In PDF Stamps
The PDF specification defines a set of standard stamp names that PDF readers should render: Approved, Experimental, NotApproved, AsIs, Expired, NotForPublicRelease, Confidential, Final, Sold, Departmental, ForComment, TopSecret, Draft, ForPublicRelease. PDF viewers are expected to have built-in graphic renderings for these names. Acrobat Reader includes 20+ built-in stamp graphics across categories: Standard Business, Sign Here, and Dynamic (stamps that include date, time, and reviewer name).
Custom Stamps
In Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can create custom stamps from any image or PDF file: Comment → Stamps → Create Custom Stamp. The stamp is stored as a PDF Form XObject in Acrobat's local stamp library. Custom stamps can include your company logo, a signature image, a QR code, or any graphical content. Custom stamps created in Acrobat on one machine are not automatically available on other machines — the stamp library is local. To share custom stamps, export the stamp library file and import it on other machines.
Stamps vs Watermarks
Stamps are annotations: they live in the annotation layer, appear in the Comments panel, can be moved, resized, and deleted by anyone with annotation editing capability, and can have author/date metadata. Watermarks are typically implemented as content in the page content stream: they are harder to remove (require content stream editing), appear as part of the page itself rather than an annotation, and don't appear in the Comments panel. Use stamps for review and approval workflows; use watermarks for classification marking and distribution control.
Printing Stamps
Whether stamps print depends on the annotation's Print flag. Most built-in Acrobat stamps have the Print flag set by default — they appear in printed output unless the printer is set to "Document Only" in Acrobat's print dialog. Dynamic stamps that include date and reviewer name are particularly useful for approval workflows: the stamp records who approved and when, both on screen and in print.
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