How do I put a reader's name across every page of a PDF?

Open Export and choose Watermarked draft PDF. Type the text you want, for example the reader's name, and confirm. Storskarvia prints it in large light grey capitals, diagonally across the middle of every page, behind the text. It keeps the first 40 characters, and around 25 capital letters is the most that fits comfortably between the edges of the page.

Why is there no PDF with revision stars option in my Export menu?

Only the document's owner sees it. Revision stars compare the draft against one of the owner's saved versions, and versions are private to the owner, so a collaborator on a share link cannot use it.

I deleted a whole scene but the revision PDF shows no mark for it. Why?

A star marks a line whose text is new since the version you compared against. A deleted line is no longer on the page, so there is nothing to put a star beside. Moved lines, and changes that only affect formatting or element type, are not starred either. Tell your readers about cuts separately.

Chapter 51 · Getting Work In and Out

Watermarked Drafts and Revision Stars

Some drafts need to say who they were for, and some need to say what changed. The Export menu has one PDF for each job: a watermark that stamps a name across every page, and a revision export that puts an asterisk in the margin beside every line you have rewritten since a saved version. This chapter covers both, what they mark, and the places they stay silent.

Two stamped PDFs

Both live under Export ▾ at the top right of the editor, below the ordinary typeset entries described in Chapter 50:

Entry	Who sees it	What it adds
Watermarked draft PDF…	Anyone who can open the document, including collaborators on a share link	A line of text printed diagonally across every page
PDF with revision stars…	The owner only	An asterisk beside every changed line, and a revision name on the pages listed under The revision name

Each one builds the same typeset PDF as Typeset PDF (.pdf), with the extra marks drawn on top. The pages break in exactly the same places, so a watermarked copy and a clean copy of the same draft have the same page count and the same page numbers. Like every typeset export, both save your latest edit first and build the PDF from the server's copy.

Watermarking a draft

Choose Export ▾ → Watermarked draft PDF…
A box asks for the Watermark text, filled in with DRAFT. Replace it with whatever the copy should carry: a reader's name, FOR JANE SMITH ONLY, or NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION.
Confirm, and the PDF downloads under the document's title.

The text prints in large, bold, light grey capitals as you typed them, turned 45 degrees and centred on the page. It sits behind the writing, so the script stays readable through it. It prints on every page, including a screenplay's title page and a play's cover, cast page and musical numbers.

Keep it short. Storskarvia keeps the first 40 characters and drops the rest, and at that size about 25 capital letters is the most that fits between the edges of the page. A longer line runs off both sides and loses its first and last letters. FOR JANE SMITH ONLY, at 19 characters, fits with room to spare.

If you clear the box and confirm, you get a plain typeset PDF with no watermark. Cancelling makes nothing.

One watermark per copy. When the same draft goes to three readers, export it three times with three names; the downloads share a file name, so rename each one as it arrives.

Revision stars

Revision stars need something to compare against, so save a named version at the moment a draft goes out: Versions ▾ → Save version…, with a name like "Draft sent to producers". Chapter 7 covers versions in full. When the rewrite is done:

Choose Export ▾ → PDF with revision stars…
A box headed Mark everything changed since which version? lists your nine most recent versions, newest first, each numbered, with its name and date. Automatic checkpoints appear as checkpoint. Type the number of the version the readers last saw.
A second box asks for the Revision name for the header, filled in with today's date. Type the name productions use, for example Blue 7/6, or keep the date.
Confirm, and the PDF downloads.

Only the nine newest versions are offered. Automatic checkpoints count toward the nine, so on a busy day the version you sent a week ago can drop off the list. Naming the version when the draft goes out is what keeps it findable.

What earns a star

Storskarvia compares the text of each paragraph now with every paragraph in the version you picked. A paragraph whose text did not exist in that version gets an asterisk in the right-hand margin, beside its first line. In a script or a play, that means each scene heading, stage direction, action paragraph, character cue, parenthetical, lyric and line of dialogue is judged on its own, so rewriting one speech stars that speech and leaves its cue unmarked. The lines inside a dual dialogue pair, or a play's simultaneous dialogue, are judged one by one the same way. In prose, each list item, each paragraph of a block quote and each table row is judged on its own. Spacing differences are ignored.

The comparison works on words, which has consequences worth knowing before you circulate:

Change	Starred?
A line rewritten, or a new line added	Yes
A line deleted	No. It is gone, so there is nothing to put a star beside
A line moved to another scene, unchanged	No
Bold, italics, or a change of element type with the same words	No
A new line whose words match a line anywhere in the old version, such as a second `Yes.`	No
A line edited inside a dual dialogue pair or simultaneous dialogue	Yes. The two speeches share rows, so when both sides change on the same row, that row gets one star
A list item, block quote paragraph or table cell edited in prose	Yes. A table row prints as one line, so editing any cell stars the row. A list nested inside an item prints on its parent item's line, so editing it stars that line

If your notes included cuts or restructuring, say so in the covering email. The stars show what was written, and they cannot show what was taken away.

A screenplay with a production revision issued already stars the lines carrying that revision's mark, in every typeset PDF, alongside any stars from this comparison. Issued revisions and coloured pages are covered in Chapter 17.

The name keeps its first 24 characters and prints as Rev. Blue 7/6 in small type at the top left of the page. Where else it goes depends on the format:

Document	Where the name prints
Screenplay	Every script page, and, when the script has a title page, as `Revision: Blue 7/6` at its foot, after the contact line
Stage play	Every page of the play, on the page-number line, and as `Revision: Blue 7/6` at the bottom left of the cover, above the copyright when there is one. Each moves up a row at a time until it clears the contact line beside it by a quarter inch, so a long contact block can push them higher. The cast page and musical numbers page do not carry it
Novel, audio drama, video script	Every page, one line below the running head. On front matter, which has no running head, it takes the head's line

The screenplay title page footer is a single line of up to 70 characters, contact and revision together, so a long contact line can cut the revision name short there.

Which formats honour them

Document	Watermark	Stars	Revision name
Screenplay	Yes	Yes	Yes
Novel, audio drama, video script	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stage play	Yes	Yes	Yes

A stage play has its own typesetter, described in Chapter 19. It draws the same watermark, the same stars and the same revision name, and none of them moves a line, so a stamped play keeps the page numbers of the clean one.

Neither mark can be added to Manuscript for submission. An agent's reading copy should be clean anyway.

When it goes wrong

What you see	What happened
No PDF with revision stars entry	You are a collaborator. Only the owner can compare against the owner's versions.
A message saying there are no saved versions to compare against yet	The document has no versions on Storskarvia. Save one from Versions ▾, make your changes, then export.
No versions, on a document with zero retention	Versions made while zero retention is on live only in the `.versions/` folder in your storage, and this export can only read versions Storskarvia holds.
You typed a number and nothing happened	The number did not match a listed version. Choose the export again and type one of the numbers shown.
Not exported: Version not found	That version no longer exists. Automatic checkpoints are pruned to the twenty most recent. Pick another.
The Rev. line printed but no stars	No paragraph's text changed since that version, or every change was one of the unstarred kinds above. Check that you picked the version the readers last saw.
The watermark is missing its first and last letters	The text is too wide for the page. Shorten it to about 25 capitals.

A PDF is for reading. When the next person needs to edit the draft, send them a file they can open in their own software: Word, Final Draft, Fountain or plain text, which the next chapter covers.

Updated 2026-09-27 · Full contents · Something wrong or missing?

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