Poppler needs an option to turn off printing of watermark

[Paul Hirst]

Binary package hint: evince

The UK Royal mail provide a service where you can print your postage online. It provides you with a PDF file which you print out and attach to your envelope. The problem is that on screen the PDF appears with SAMPLE written across the middle of it, with a note that this won't appear in the printed version. Unfortunately it does appear in the printed version making the label useless.

Both Evince and XPDF as provided with Hardy exhibit this behaviour, however the version of Xpdf provided with Gutsy worked correctly (ie the label printed without SAMPLE written across it) but evince as provided with Gutsy didn't print at all.

I was going to get the official Adobe Acrobat reader but there isn't a x86-64 version so that's not really a valid workaround for my machine.

I have logged this against evince because I think the default PDF reader should be able to cope with these files, although I guess it's also a regression against Xpdf.

Just to be clear, the royalmail site does allow you to download a sample before you pay and print the real thing, but this attachment is the final paid for version not the sample.

[Sergej Kotliar (sigge)]

I believe this has to do with poppler currently not supporting transparency.

I'm not too sure though, so I wont close this as duplicate just yet and let the
devs look at it...

[Nickolay V. Shmyrev (nshmyrev)]

For an example PDF, go to:
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=SupportDetailAct&fcategoryid=215&modelid=12929

Click on "Product / Software Manuals"

Download the "EOS 30D Introduction Manual (PDF, 6.15 MB)"

All pages show "COPY", instead of the content of the file, which is the product
manual with a "COPY" watermark on each page. I'll attach the file if attaching
files is possible here.

Similar evince bug 338445

[Berti (bertrand-haut-gmail)]

With my current installed kpdf (0.5.5) using libpoppler1 (0.5.1-0ubuntu7), I'm
able to read the two examples seeing the COPY and the text content. Maybe this
bug should be closed

[Janjans321 (janjans321)]

This is a bug.

The "COPY" text is rendered correctly, but since it is a "Print Only Watermark",
it should only be printed, not displayed when viewing the PDF on screen.

Adobe Acrobat does not show the COPY text, only when choosing Print Preview or
actually printing it.

[Arromdee (arromdee)]

This bug affects the Marvel Comics DVD-ROMs that have been published for the last year or two. If you use Adobe Acrobat 6 or greater each page has a big "MARVEL" plastered across it when printed, but not on the screen. However, all known Linux PDF reading programs show the watermark even on the screen.

[Brad Hards (bradh)]

OK, there are two different problems here.

The original problem was an opaque COPY watermark instead of the text. That problem has now been fixed (update to poppler 0.6 if you use evince and are still seeing this).

The problem identified in comment #4 and #5 is related to Optional Content implementation. This is the relevant part of the PSSISCUG-EN.pdf document:
779 0 obj<</Pages 753 0 R/Type/Catalog/OpenAction 780 0 R/PageLabels 751 0 R/Metadata 775 0 R/OCProperties<</D<</Order[]/AS[<</OCGs[782 0 R]/Category[/View]/Event/View>><</OCGs[782 0 R]/Category[/Print]/Event/Print>><</OCGs[782 0 R]/Category[/Export]/Event/Export>>]/ON[782 0 R]/RBGroups[]>>/OCGs[782 0 R]>>>>
endobj
782 0 obj<</Type/OCG/Name(Í2ZÒ°yLÏø)/Usage<</Export<</ExportState/ON>>/Print<</PrintState/ON>>/View<</ViewState/OFF>>/PageElement<</Subtype/FG>>>>>>
endobj

That might be quite hard to implement in poppler without an API change...

[Paul Hirst (paul-hirst)]

Binary package hint: evince

The UK Royal mail provide a service where you can print your postage online. It provides you with a PDF file which you print out and attach to your envelope. The problem is that on screen the PDF appears with SAMPLE written across the middle of it, with a note that this won't appear in the printed version. Unfortunately it does appear in the printed version making the label useless.

Both Evince and XPDF as provided with Hardy exhibit this behaviour, however the version of Xpdf provided with Gutsy worked correctly (ie the label printed without SAMPLE written across it) but evince as provided with Gutsy didn't print at all.

I was going to get the official Adobe Acrobat reader but there isn't a x86-64 version so that's not really a valid workaround for my machine.

I have logged this against evince because I think the default PDF reader should be able to cope with these files, although I guess it's also a regression against Xpdf.

Just to be clear, the royalmail site does allow you to download a sample before you pay and print the real thing, but this attachment is the final paid for version not the sample.

[Paul Hirst (paul-hirst)]

Btw, it cost me 27p to provide this test PDF so I expect this to be high priority ;-)

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

Please contact the provider that your downloading the material from as I doubt this is an evince issue. Evince doesn't know what is a sample and what is not, it shouldn't matter what kind of material you are trying to print.

I'll stay subscribed to this bug until I hear back from you,

Thanks

Richard Seguin

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

* Marking incomplete and removing assignment pending enough information to complete triage

[Paul Hirst (paul-hirst)]

Thanks for the speedy response! I've clearly not explained myself properly as you seem to have got the wrong end of the stick.

The PDF file should render differently on screen to when it is printed. The on screen rendering should contain a 'watermark' (for want of a better word) but the printed out version shouldn't. The 'watermark' in this case is the word SAMPLE in bold written across the whole image.

The previous (Gutsy) version of XPDF displayed the 'watermark' on screen but it was absent once printed. This is the correct behaviour. The current versions of both XPDF and Evince include the 'watermark' in the printed copy and this is incorrect behaviour, it should be absent.

If I have still failed to explain myself this blog posting I found should make it more obvious.
http://www.mealldubh.org/index.php/2008/01/30/uk-royal-mail-stamps-on-linux-lovers/

Thanks for your time.

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

Your right I did misunderstand the original report... It seems that evince and xpdf don't have a way to turn off printing of a watermark

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

*Re-assigning to Evince and xpdf

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

I have consulted with a member of bugcontrol and was told that the right assignment is "Poppler" and I was made aware of an upstream bug to which I have linked to this report.

Thank you for reporting this issue and feel free to report any other bugs you find with Ubuntu

Richard Seguin

[Paul Hirst (paul-hirst)]

Created an attachment (id=17053)
A UK royalmail online stamp which doesn't print correctly

My experience is the other way around.

The UK postal service allow you to print stamps online (they come with a unique 2d barcode). The service is web based and provides you with a PDF to print and attach to your envelope. The on screen rendering contains a 'watermark' across the whole image which is supposed to be absent once printed. Using Evince the 'watermark' is present on the printed version rendering it useless.

The watermark in this case is the word 'Sample' written in large letters diagonally across the middle and a box containing 'Sample will not appear when printed'. Unfortunately when using Evince this is a lie!

I have reported this to Ubuntu which is what led me here.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/238817

This attachment is an example as produced at www.royalmail.com

[Greg A (etulfetulf)]

This is fixed in Ubuntu Intrepid! In fact Adobe Reader on Intrepid from Medibuntu has problems with parts of the PDFs as well!

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

this was never fixed, and upstream is still marked as "confirmed". switching back to triaged

[Carlos Garcia Campos (carlosgc)]

This bug is fixed since poppler 0.11. Feel free to reopen it if the problem is still present for you with current poppler

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

i can still reproduce this issue with poppler 0.12.

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

this doesn't affect xpdf directly anymore since it uses poppler now.

[Dulsi2000 (dulsi2000)]

I have also seen the problem with The Incredible Hulk: The Complete Collection.

[Gitlab-migration (gitlab-migration)]

-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/poppler/poppler/issues/203.