Watermarking lets you apply a dynamic, user specific mark to every document viewed or downloaded from a data room, so any copy can be traced back to the person who accessed it. A separate control lets you disable printing from the browser viewer for an added layer of protection.

Watermarking is configured once for the whole data room, and you can opt specific folders or files out where a clean reading experience is needed.

Prerequisite: You must be a Matter Admin to configure watermarking.

Watermarking is off by default for every new data room. To turn it on:

Turning watermarking on does not affect anything already viewed or downloaded. It applies from the moment the toggle is switched on.

You can choose which details appear on each watermarked document. All options are off by default, so nothing appears until you select it:

Placement: choose Diagonal center (the default), Header, or Footer.

Opacity: use the slider to set how visible the watermark is, from 10% to 50%. The default is 15%.

Click Preview watermark to see how your current settings will look on a sample document before sharing the room. The preview is read only and does not affect any live document.

Preview is available once watermarking is switched on and at least one detail has been selected.

When watermarking is switched on, every folder and file in the data room is Applied by default. You can opt individual folders or files out where a clean copy is needed:

There is no separate save step; the change takes effect immediately.

Opting a folder out carries through to everything inside it, unless a file or subfolder has its own explicit setting. A file you set directly keeps that setting even if its parent folder is changed later. Files added to a folder pick up whatever setting that folder has at the time they're uploaded.

Each row shows a small icon, next to the Permissions padlock, indicating whether that item is Applied, Not applied, or overriding its parent folder's setting.

Bulk changes: select multiple folders or files and use the Watermarking option in the bulk action bar to set them all to Applied or Not applied in one action.

The File tab also includes a Disable printing in browser viewer toggle, switched off by default.

When switched on, the print button is hidden from the browser viewer toolbar and the browser's print shortcut is blocked while a document from that data room is open. Downloaded files are not affected.

This setting works independently of watermarking. It applies to every document in the room, whether or not that particular item is set to Applied.

Viewing: a semi transparent watermark appears on every page of a document set to Applied, showing the details you've chosen, resolved to that specific viewer. The watermark cannot be selected or copied.

Downloading: the watermark is permanently embedded in the downloaded file, resolved to the details of the person downloading it at that moment.

Zip downloads: when a folder or selection is downloaded as a zip, each eligible file inside is watermarked individually before the archive is created. Files set to Not applied, and file types that aren't supported, are included unchanged.

If a watermarked file takes a little longer to prepare, a short loading message appears. For larger downloads or archives, you'll be notified once the file is ready to download rather than being kept waiting on screen.

Watermark settings, including folder and file level choices, carry across when a data room is duplicated or created from a matter template, so you don't need to set them up again each time.