How to Tag Watermarks (Desktop and Advanced Editor)

Watermarks, like logos or text, are superimposed images atop a document, used to communicate some sort of information.  Because of this, watermarks should be tagged in the tags tree at least once.  But tagging the same watermark multiple times would be unnecessary.  Your first decision, then, is to decide when in the document it should be tagged.  Most likely, it'll make sense to tag the watermark near where it either first or last appears in the physical view.  Of course, if it's just decorative then you should artifact it.  

The importance of the watermark will influence where you place the tag in the tags tree.  For example, in the figure below, the watermark atop the text is marked as "Confidential."  It would be most logical to place the watermark figure tag at the top of the tags tree and provide alternate text letting the reader know, right away, that the following information is confidential.  If it's something that's not immediately important, such as your organization's logo, perhaps place it at the end of the reading order.   

Selecting the Watermark

Selecting the watermark itself can sometimes be difficult.  One thing to try:  Borrowing from the example above, if the word "Confidential" is created "graphically" then you could change your selection settings to just be able to select images, highlight the word "Confidential," put it in a Figure tag (because it's a graphic" and then assign the Actual Text "Confidential."  If the watermark is "real" text, and not something graphical, then this will be harder to select.
 

Here are some additional articles that might help:

• Selection Settings in CommonLook PDF
• Tagging untagged content in CommonLook PDF