Add watermark to PDF

Question

Hi
I am trying to add a watermark to existing pdf's in 10.4.11 & 10.5.7 using Adobe Acrobat Professional (8.1.3), having the watermark appear on top of page, show when printing, selecting a file source, fitting to page.
I have searched for an applescript solution, but have found only one, I do not no if doing a shell script is possible as I do not no shell scripting.
I have run into this link which uses pdftk
http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/index.html#docs
I have installed on 10.4.11 hoping it would work, but it appears not to as it looks like it was only set up for Panther (i could be wrong).
I also found this link
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=676855
which is what I was wanting, an applescript to run the above command to add a water mark, but this also appears not to work.
Does anybody no of and applescript, shell script solution to do what I am after please.
cheers
Budgie

Answer 1

Check out Acrobat's Javascript API
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/jsapireference.pdf
page 272 has info on setting a watermark from file. The javascript can then be executed upon a PDF with AppleScript/Acrobat Pro's 'do script' command. I use the following to set a watermark from text:
tell application "Adobe Acrobat Professional"
do script "var d = app.openDoc({cPath:+path to PDF+,bHidden:true});d.addWatermarkFromText({cText:'PROOF', bOnScreen:false, bOnPrint:true, nScale:-1, nOpacity:.15, nRotation:20});"
end tell
The javascript code can be compiled as a string with applescript variables, tho I occasionally have to coerce it into Unicode text depending on which version of OS/AppleScript is at play.