Your diagnosis is correct. Another option is to put the text in a textbox
anchored to the header or footer. Use a big bold font, and set the text
color to something light and innocuous. Being real text rather than a
WordArt graphic, it should print a lot faster.


"AG" wrote in message
...
I am using the background printed watermark option to put the text "working
copy" as a background shadow in a document I am working on

What I observe is that when I print it, it takes much more time for each
page than when there is no background

I made a test and printed it with and without background as a PDF file

The size of the file with the backgroup is several times larger than the
other.

And when I look at the pds file, the backgroud appears very slowly at each
page

What I suppose Word is doing is to convert my backgroup text as a bitmat
and
to repeat it at each page explaining both the size and the slow display

Is there a way to do otherwise

Thanks

AG