Hi Laurie, I appreciate the issue & problems it causes you, however this is not the best place to ask.

TL:DR Explain the issue very briefly in a suitable mailing list/forum

1. See listing https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/
   • This one would seem approprite to ask about the technical aspects #dev-dpf
     And possibly this one to ask about the watermarks being defeated #privacy
   • Initially Ask for advice in where to discuss this mater if not their forum. Ensuring you make the point it is a global Firefox issue with a Firefox default feature and not a site specific problem.
2. Post back here to keep us informed of your progress, including links to the conversations..

I must immediately say I do not know the first thing about the technical aspects of the Firefx PDF reader.

I surmise that it is not a deliberate intention to remove the watermarks but a limitation in the PDF reader's ability to support such a feature. However I could be wrong as there are people who would; no doubt; argue Firefox should not support watermarks, as that restricts free access to material on the Web.

This is not the place for any such discussion about internet rights. Neither do we discuss development decisions and policies. It is often difficult to find anywhere on Mozilla where they do discuss anything like that retrospectively.

IIRC Admin Staff on this site agreed to identify and list any such resources, but I don't recall anything being done about that.

You could just file a bug (I could help if necessary) for such a feature, however it would be much better to start a discussion about this first with the people concerned. A bug filed without prior discussion with module owners may well be effectively ignored.

I've flagged this as offtopic, but I will not lock the post until I know you have found somewhere to discuss this.

A Bug was filed about that last month. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860632

Thanks to both of you for your prompt responses.

the-edmeister said

A Bug was filed about that last month. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860632

That one says filed 2013-04-11 (nearly 2 years ago).

"Are you talking about pdf.js or embeded foxit reader? I can reproduce it in pdf.js but if you see the problem with foxit reader you need to take it up with them."

"yes, it is in pdf.js - sorry (I thought it was foxit reader because of an support screenshot which I have received). I've changed it in the title"

"Fixed by bug 937670"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=937670

Last entry on that page was 2013-11-17.

Over a year later the problem persists, in Firefox that is set to automatically update itself and has done so since then.

Even if people can't print PDF content minus watermark they can easily save screen images.

Since it's obviously a long term problem which is not fixed, and you now know about it, do I really need to follow up on the technical forum?

The pdf.js project is run largely outside of the bug tracking system, so the best way to get changes in there would be through the mailing list or the GitHub issues system.

When I search the latter, I don't see this exact problem under "watermark": https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/issues?q=is%3Aissue+watermark

If I open the sample PDF in Acrobat XI, the "watermark" appears to be a huge image (A4-sized). If I embed a different image and use Arrange > Move to Back, in Acrobat it is nearly entirely hidden by your watermark image, but in the viewer it is visible. Example: http://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/Auld-Lang-Syne-SATB-harmony-Laurie-Williams-1995-Letter-lauriewilliamsmusic-20141128-sample2.pdf

So your embedded watermark image is being ignored or rendered transparent for some reason. It could be something about the particular way the image is generated by PDFill.

GitHub lists numerous issues for "background image": https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/issues?q=is%3Aissue+background+image

Maybe something there identifies the issue, or perhaps it is easiest to file a new issue.

Incidentally, I see these lines in Firefox's Browser Console (Ctrl+Shift+j) after loading the PDF in Firefox 34.0.5:

• "PDF af78772877ea8b8e287dd2d26a61d3b [1.4 PlotSoft PDFill 10.0 / -] (PDF.js: 1.0.712)"
• "Warning: Unable to decode image: TypeError: this.colorSpace.fillRgb is not a function"
• "Warning: Dependent image isn't ready yet"

That might help someone at pdf.js in understanding the problem.

Thank you all for your responses.

Since the Mozilla PDF reader has the unacceptable failing of inability (or refusal?) to display an element of content of PDF files then the obvious suspicion is that others may have the same fault.

Given that the Mozilla reader has had this serious failing for years, and the related assumption that Mozilla people (not you who have replied here) seem to have inadequate or even no interest in rectifying it, it's best regarded as a lost cause.

I have removed all those watermarked PDF samples and replaced them with low resolution GIF images of the same files.

http://lauriewilliamsmusic.com/composers/laurie-williams/auld-lang-syne/

One advantage, at least in this case, is that WordPress automatically displays thumbnails of the samples. That would have been possible with provision of PDF samples, but is much easier this way.

Problem solved.

A warning to everyone who sells download content as PDF files and offers free watermarked samples of any of it - because PDF readers can not be trusted to work properly, provide those samples as GIF images, never as PDF files.