How to insert a pdf as background?

Question

I want to use a pdf page as background for a title page. The pdfpages package does a good job inserting the page, but I can't write my content on it.

Answer 1

You will need the package eso-pic (eso-pic package)

\usepackage{eso-pic}

Before \begin{document}, define:

\newcommand\BackgroundPic{
    \put(0,0){
    \parbox[b][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
    \vfill
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\paperwidth,height=\paperheight]{BackGroundPDF.pdf}
    \vfill
    }}}

After \begin{document}:

\AddToShipoutPicture*{\BackgroundPic}
 \maketitle

the * states that the background picture is only used on that page.

Answer 2

I recently encountered this problem and I found the solution from https://latex.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26829 works better for me. Since this question here pops out on the top when I search for it. It may be beneficial to also have the code here.

It uses the package background.

\documentclass[10pt]{letter}
\usepackage{background}
\backgroundsetup{scale = 1, angle = 0, opacity = 0.2,
   contents = {\includegraphics[width = \paperwidth,
   height = \paperheight, keepaspectratio]
   {Background.pdf}}}
\begin{document}
Main text.
\end{document}