By Kyle Knebel
February 2025 Consultants Corner
For Laserfiche users that download, email, or print documents to send outside their organization, watermarks or embedded annotations on those documents can help provide a bit more “security.”
Watermarks can be added when downloading or printing a document from the Laserfiche Web Client, Laserfiche Cloud, or Laserfiche Windows Client. If printing with Laserfiche Snapshot, embedded annotations on image files can accomplish the same idea as watermarking, but in a more permanent fashion.
This month we’ll look at the customizable settings available for watermarking or embedding annotations.
Watermark
Watermarks can be assigned using three methods in Laserfiche “Optional watermarks”, “Group watermarks” or “Tag watermarks.”
Optional Watermarks:
Optional watermarks are configured individually by each user and apply only to that user. You can create and store multiple optional watermark configurations to be used at any time; however, Laserfiche will include only the currently selected watermark during export. You cannot place more than one optional watermark on an image.
Optional watermarks can be configured for export, printing, or both. (In the Laserfiche web client, since printing is handled by first exporting the document and then printing the exported files, both types of watermarks are configured for exporting.)
Windows Client:
In the Windows Client you can set the optional watermark text that will be applied to all the downloaded pages. These are per-user settings and don’t impact other users. You can pre-set the value from the Tools>Options choice on the Laserfiche file menu. Or you can set it from the “Options” button on the image download dialog box.
Scenario 1:
From the File>Options menu. Use this method to preset all future watermark options
Scenario 2:
Downloading an image file using the File>Download>Images
In either case, the Watermark properties can be set for this and future downloads, if so desired. Watermarks are only applied to exported or printed image pages, not electronic documents like MS Word files or text files. The created watermarks are saved for the user that created them, so they remain personal watermarks, not visible to any other user.
In the example below, we’ve added the word Confidential along with the token for the name of the person logged into the client. Even though the token is not selectable onscreen, you can enter it manually. The “%(username)” token will be replaced by the name of the user. Text, as well as standard Laserfiche tokens, can be used in the Watermark text box. Here are a few example tokens:
%(username)
%(Date)
%(Time)
%(DateTime)
To set this same watermark to all future image file downloads, check the “Apply when downloading (and no other watermarks are present)” box.
Below is an example of the watermark that results from the settings.
Laserfiche Cloud or Web Client:
In the Web Client (for On-Premise systems or Laserfiche Cloud) you can set up the watermark text that could be applied to all the downloaded pages. You can pre-set the values from the Options choice on the User’s Account properties.
To create any watermarks in the web client, click on “Download” in the Options menu. Scroll down to “Optional Watermarks” and click the “Add” link. The created watermarks are saved for the user that created them, so they remain personal watermarks, not visible to any other user.
Below is a list of some sample watermarks available to this example user.
In the example below, we’ve added the word Confidential along with the token for the name of the person logged into the client. Even though the tokens are not selectable onscreen, you can enter it manually. The “%(username)” token will be replaced by the name of the user. Text, as well as standard Laserfiche tokens, can be used in the Watermark text box. Here are a few example tokens:
%(username) – This is the logged in user’s name.
%(Date)
%(Time)
%(DateTime)
%(id) – this is the Laserfiche EntryID of the file
When downloading a document, you can choose to apply an existing watermark from the Download dialog box. Choose any existing watermark from the “Optional Watermarks” list.
Group Watermarks:
For those Laserfiche systems licensed with Laserfiche Audit Trail,” Group Watermarks” are available.
Here’s the rule regarding Group Watermarks: If watermarks have been assigned to a group to which a user belongs, the watermarks will be present on the image when that user prints or exports a document. No exceptions. A Watermark is applied automatically.
Here’s how to set up the watermark definitions. We’ll show you how to do this on both the Windows Administration console and the Web Management console. You’ll need to have the “Manage Repository Configuration” privilege, at minimum, to accomplish this.
Windows Administration Console
Navigate to the Group in which you want to assign watermarks. Click the Watermarks tab, then enter the watermark text, including any tokens, and then press Add.
To configure the defaults that Laserfiche uses to apply the watermarks to any exported documents by a group member, navigate to the “Repository Options” node and select “Group Watermark”, as shown in the image below.
Double click on any of the properties seen on the right side of the screen, which will then pop open to display the options seen below. Configure the layout as you desire. There are two tabs, one for the Location and the other for Headers/Footers.
Watermark Headers and Footers can be used to show different text than the watermark text. This text will display when the user opens an image document in the Laserfiche document viewer.
Web Management screen:
In your web browser, navigate from the top-right corner under your user account that has Administrator privileges and choose “Management” (“Administration” if using version 12 web client). As mentioned earlier, you’ll need to have the “Manage Repository Configuration” privilege, at minimum, to accomplish this.
Then select “General” on the left side, then click on the “Group Watermarks” tab as shown below.
Next, you’ll want to configure any Groups with the Watermark text you would like to appear on exported or printed documents.
Tag Watermarks:
Web Management screen
Tag watermarks in Laserfiche are watermarks that are automatically associated with specific tags configured by an administrator. When a tag with a configured watermark is applied to a document, the watermark will automatically be included as a document is exported. If a document has multiple tag watermarks all of them will be included during export.
As an Administrator, navigate to the Tags tab under the Metadata node. Open or add a tag, then use the “Watermark” tab to apply the text of the watermark.
Below is an example of watermark text being added to the “Info Tag” properties.
Windows Administration Console screen
Here’s an example of the Tag Watermark properties in the Windows Administration console shown below.
Navigate to the tag, then select the Watermark tab to set the text to be used.
Embedded Annotations:
Embedded Annotations can be generated on Imaged documents as they are being stored to Laserfiche. This will typically only be accomplished using the Laserfiche Snapshot printer, which is only available when the Laserfiche Windows Client is installed. The Snapshot printer creates TIFF image file documents in a Laserfiche repository.
Laserfiche Snaptshot Configuration
Each user can configure the Snapshot printer to embed annotations. In Windows, launch the Snapshot Configuration (Current User) application.
Then click on the “Preferences” button to open the Printing Preferences dialog box. Finally, click the Embed Annotation tab.
Annotation settings can be easily customized for each page. There is a preview box to show the image and text that will result from your settings.
Click OK to save the settings.
Note: You can also set watermarks in your Snapshot printing preferences, however, these can only be images, not text. The image would become an overlay on the page. You can only use .JPG, .TIFF or .BMP formatted images.
This concludes this month’s review of Watermarks and Embedded Annotations available in Laserfiche. We hope you found it informative and useful!
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