Are you looking for a guide about how to remove watermark in excel 2016? Have you been searching for a way to remove watermark in excel 2010? I’m sorry to disappoint you but you probably won’t find any free or paid removal tools.
Removing watermark from Excel documents is quite easy. In fact, if you have a copy of MS Word installed on your computer, you can remove watermarks from Excel files in just few seconds. That’s because removing watermark from excel is the same as removing watermark in MS Word. It doesn’t matter what version of Office program it is (Word 2010, 2013 and 2016). Here we will tell you how to remove watermark in Excel using two different methods: one is to remove it using MS Word, and another way we will show you allows even to remove the hidden (invisible) watermarks in Excel files.
Excel is a powerful spreadsheet software with various features but lacks an option of a watermark. Thus, most people follow alternative methods or use third-party tools to insert a watermark in Excel. That way, they claim ownership or promote their brand. Since there are some alternate options to insert watermarks in excel, we may get Excel files with watermarks one way or another. If we want to remove a watermark in Excel files, we must do it manually or by using some third-party tools. It is typically a reverse of inserting a watermark in Excel.
Because one can use different methods to add a watermark in excel, we may need to follow different ways to remove a watermark from excel. Generally, we can try the following methods to remove a watermark from the excel files:
- Remove a Watermark by Deleting a Background
- Remove a Watermark by using the ‘Header & Footer’ function
- Remove a Watermark by using the ‘Go to Special’ function
- Remove a Watermark by using the Third-Party Tools
Use the following procedure to remove a watermark from every sheet header in your workbook.
- On the Layout tab, under Page Setup, click Header & Footer.
- Click Customize Header, and then click the section of the sheet header in which the watermark appears.
- Select the watermark, and then press DELETE .
- Click OK, and then click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box.
Remove Watermark with ‘Header & Footer’ Function
If the watermark is an image that repeats on every page, but only once on each page, then, in this case, that watermark is inserted as ‘Header & Footer’ in Excel. A Header & Footer image can be removed as follows:
Below are the steps to remove watermark with header and footer function –
- Click on the ‘Page Layout’ view by clicking on ‘View’ and select ‘Page Layout.’
- Then click on the ‘Insert’ tab and select ‘Header u0026 Footer’ in the Text section
- Now delete the ‘u0026[Picture]’ text that appears in the Header u0026 Footer’ section. Then click anywhere else on the spreadsheet, and the watermark will be gone.
- Now, on deleting the’u0026[Picture],’ we see as below that the watermark gets deleted.
- Click anywhere else on the spreadsheet to see that the watermark has been removed.
Note: We might have to click in each section of ‘Header u0026 Footer’ to view the text, as it can be hidden by large images.
‘Go to Special’ Function
If we have a watermark that is a WordArt object, then it can be removed as follows:
In this case, we can use the ‘Go-To Special’ function to find the WordArt (object) and then press the ‘Delete’ button to remove the watermark.
- To view the watermark, click on the ‘Page Layout’ view by clicking on ‘View’ then select ‘Page Layout.’
- Now go to “Home” and click “Find & Select” and select “Go to Special.”
- A ‘’Go To Special’ dialog box appears
- Checkmark the ‘Objects’ option and then click ‘OK.’
- We see that the WordArt watermark has been selected
- Now press the ‘Delete’ button to remove this selected watermark and click anywhere else on the spreadsheet to see that the watermark has been removed.
Note: With this method, other objects like pictures and shapes will also be removed. So it should be used with caution. When creating Word Art Watermarks, one should use semi-transparent colors and use a light gray fill for the art.
Remove a Watermark by using the Third-Party Tools
Sometimes, watermarks are added using third-party tools, and therefore, they are not certainly removed using the methods discussed above. In this case, we are required to try third-party tools to remove the watermarks in Excel. Although there are several tools, most of them use the same algorithm. Therefore, we can try any of the popular third-party tools to perform this task.
Here, we are using the ‘Kutools for Excel‘, one of the popular extensions/tools. It allows us to perform various advanced tasks in Excel with ease. The extension also allows us to insert or remove watermarks in Excel. This particular extension comes with a 60 days demo period; therefore, we can try its features for 60 days from the installation date. After that, we have to purchase this extension for future use.
The following steps can help install this extension and further use it for removing the watermark in Excel:
- First, we must go to the official website of Kutools (which is www.extenoffice.com) to download this extension on our computer. To quickly download this extension, we can use the direct link (given below) and access the download page: Link- https://www.extendoffice.com/download/kutools-for-excel.html
- After that, we need to click on the option ‘Click Here to Start Download‘, and the download will start.
- Once the download has been completed, we need to launch the setup file (KutoolsforExcelSetup.exe) to begin the installation. After we launch the setup, we must allow admin permission to start copying the required files on the computer.
- On the next screen, we must accept the terms in the ‘User License Agreement’ and click on the ‘Install‘ button.
- After clicking on the ‘Install’ button, the installation will start. It may take some time, depending on the system performance and the storage availability.
- Once the installation has finished, the extension will be added with Excel. We can also launch Excel with Kutools by selecting the checkbox and clicking on the ‘Finish‘ button.
Besides, we can uncheck the box to finish the installation and open an Excel file directly after installing Kutools. The extension and its features will be listed there automatically after the installation.
- After the extension has been successfully installed, we need to open an excel file from which we want to remove a watermark. Next, we are required to click on the tab ‘Kutools‘. From the Kutools options, we are required to click on the ‘Delete‘ and then select the option ‘Delete Watermark‘ from the ‘Editing’ group.
- Once we click on the ‘Delete Watermark‘ option from the list, the watermark is instantly removed from the Excel worksheet. We can then save a copy of the file to avoid doing the same steps later. Besides, this method works for both text watermarks and image watermarks.
Conclusion:
As we know, the watermark is a visible image or text that is embedded on a document and can be seen through the page. Sometimes we may want to remove the watermark on a document due to different reasons, such as we need to share professionally with others.