posted 6/30/2011 by briankmcdonald - Views: [1859]
Someone asked me a long time ago how to do watermarking in Reporting Services and I meant to write a blog about it. Then I was asked again just yesterday. So, I figured it was worth a quick blog. In this quick blog, I will show you how to use an image that appears in the background of the report. An assumption is made that you already have an image that can be used as a watermark.
I fired up BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio for those of you that are new to BI) and added a new report from my template. I added a quick dataset to my report and threw a table with a few values. Did some slight formatting and then added the image that I planned to use as a watermark. Figure 1 below shows an example before I add the watermark.
Figure 1: Before Watermarking
Now here is where I need to set the watermark. I selected a white area of my report in the report design surface to ensure that I had the report body selected and hit F4 to show the properties. Then, I just set Source to “Embedded” and selected my newly added watermark image as the Value. Finally, I wanted the watermark to repeat, so I selected Repeat under the BackgroundRepeat property. My settings are shown below in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Body Background Image Settings
Instantly, I see the results of my actions in the Report Designer as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Watermark
This has been a pretty simple demonstration of how to add a watermark, but I hope that you enjoyed it none-the-less. And if you don’t already, please be sure to follow me on twitter at @briankmcdonald. Also note that you can subscribe to an RSS feed of my blogs or find me using any of the below methods.
Brian K. McDonald, MCDBA, MCSDBusiness Intelligence Consultant
Email: bmcdonald@SQLBIGeek.com
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I think the key thing here with the watermark is that it's not as automatic to add as it is in MS Word, for example. In MS Word, you can simple use text as a watermark, and then control the transparency of the text. You can even have the text appear diagonally, like many see with 'draft' documents.
The technique here requires making use of an image that looks like a watermark, and where the image appears faded or transparent enough not to dominate the report. The technique here shows how to add a background image, but with your background image, it can be a faded image watermark, or it can be the repeating desktop of your pet bunnies.
For one using SSRS, this is the way to add your watermark image. Just be prepared, it's not the same as MS Word.
As always, great stuff BMac!
You got it Jason! It's more of a "trick" for SSRS, whereas it's a feature in MS Word. :) Hope all is well my friend.