1863302 - The PDF printing quality is low

Status: REOPENED

(Firefox :: PDF Viewer, defect, P3)

Description

[Lukas]

Attachment: Screenshot_20231106_122800.png

Steps to reproduce:

Open any PDF with text in it and zoom to 1000%. The text is not really clear, it is a bit blurry. I noticed when printing a document, the text was blurry. But it is not only when printing, already opening a PDF shows the difference. It seems that the opened PDF in Firefox is not a vector graphics any more? I tested it on Linux an Windows, the same result. See therefore the attached picture

Actual results:

So opening the document in Firefox -> the text is blurry. Opening in any other PDF viewer: the text is clear.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::PDF Viewer' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Monica Chiorean]

Lukas, can you please share the pdf document with the issue? I am not able to reproduce the issue on Win10x64 using FF build 119.0 with https://www.africau.edu/images/default/sample.pdf . Thank you.

Comment 3

[Lukas]

On that document tested, I attached again a screenshot to the issue. There the left side is on Linux and the right side on Windows. I marked some parts where it is clearly visible - it looks like some Antialiasing filter run over it. Doesn't matter if it's on my 4K screen, the laptop screen or on my old device which has Full HD resolution. On my old device I compared it against "Foxit Reader".
I recently had to print a booklet in my town hall and they printed the PDF from Firefox and the result was blurry - that's why I noticed it. I was suprised that even on the screen this could be seen.

Some other Bugs which might be related:
Bug 1269023 Reported 2016, one wrote in November 2022 that the PDF quality got better now, but is still low
Bug 1746222
Bug 1769884
Bug 1774615

Such several year old glitches should really be addressed before adding new features as such annoyances could lead to decisions like not using FF any more in companies.. (I haven't told the town hall that printing from FF is the cause of blurriness)

Comment 4

[Lukas]

Attachment: Screenshot_20231108_FF.png

Comment 6

[Lukas]

Attachment: Screenshot_20231108_FF.png

Comment 7

[Lukas]

Well yeah, there is even another report of this, Bug 1492303
But seriously, it doesn't have to do with the zoom level. Of course, on Zoom 1000% it could be seen CLEARLY for the screenshot, but also on Zoom 400 it could be seen and also if it is printed on paper (no Zoom, 100%) or printed per PDF Printer to another PDF document. Most, the majority of people, do not report any bug and do not care about (they simply choose to use another program) - but if there are at least 5 bug reports for the same topic it should be addressed somewhen.

Comment 8

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Lukas, the problems you are reporting might seem related at first, but they are actually independent.

The problem where the text is blurred after a certain zoom level is due to what Brendan said in bug 1492303 comment 6. We know it's a high impact bug, that's why it is marked as S2.

The problem where the printing is blurry is a different one, and is only happening on a small subset of PDFs. We know of a specific case (bug 1269023 & bug 1774615), and it probably occurs in other PDFs too, but it is not a super broad bug.
If you have specific PDFs that are blurry when printed, please attach them here and we can take a look.

Comment 9

[Lukas]

(In reply to Marco Castelluccio [:marco] from comment #8)

If you have specific PDFs that are blurry when printed, please attach them here and we can take a look.

I have attached a PDF which is blurry when printed from FF, but not when printing using another PDF viewer. Clearly visible on the text on a laser printer.

Comment 10

[Lukas]

Attachment: PrintPage1.pdf