Firefox Community Forum

Anytime that I open a pdf using firefox the page will load but will just leave a blank page with nothing displayed. Reloading does not help and I have tried to change my settings around to no avail

Hi Mozilla Support Community,

I use Firefox Desktop as my primary browser for running a corporate consultancy agency. Recently, I've noticed an issue with Firefox's built-in PDF reader (pdf.js) on certain official interactive forms.

When downloading, previewing, and filling out business registration forms, MOA templates, or tax certificates from corporate web portals (such as the SECP Portal Pakistan for company name search and FBR verification tools), certain custom font fields in the PDF appear overlapped or fail to display input text properly.

System Details:

Firefox Version: Latest Desktop Release (Windows 11) Issue: Form text fields in interactive PDFs fail to render non-standard font glyphs properly. I wanted to ask:

Is there a specific preference in about:config to force Firefox's PDF.js viewer to fallback to system fonts for interactive form fields? Is there a way to reset pdf.js rendering cache without clearing general site cookies and sessions for web applications? Any troubleshooting tips or about:config tweaks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! https://secpportal.com.pk/

When viewing a PDF in Firefox the URL bar indicates the file was downloaded to a temporary folder. If I then select "Save" from the PDF toolbar; or if I right click and select "Save page as" it opens a save dialog to the location I previously saved the same category of PDF to. For example I have separate folders for invoices, if the PDF is my electricity invoice it somehow knows and opens the electricity folder. If it is a water invoice, it automatically opens the water folder.

Whilst this is indeed quite handy, I do not understand how Firefox is doing this; nor do I understand whether this may be a privacy risk in some circumstances and should therefore be configurable.

When I click on a PDF link it will auto download the PDF but then if I click on the same link again it opens it inline. I want it to always open inline and if I wish to save it I'll manually do that.

I've looked around and I found this that mentions using browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir and browser.download.open_pdf_attachments_inline. While setting the downloads to be in the tmp dir is nice for not clogging up my downloads it still doesn't solve the issue of opening and not saivng. The setting for opening pdf attachments inline sounds like it should fix it but still every time the first time I click it, it starts downloading it.

Is there any other setting that could stop this or some reason why those settings might not apply in all situations?

I use Firefox as my default program for opening PDFs. But if I try to open more than one at the same time it will always leave one out and instead open a "New Tab" that I don't need. Can't figure out why or how to fix it.

Example: If I check (windows 11) files A, B, C, D, and E. It will open A, B, D, & E and a "New Tab" and leave out C.

Any Solutions?

Hi, Firefox is hard to use for me right now. The screen turns sometimes black while using the browser. Especially when opening pdf documents in Firefox the screen turns black before the document opens. Also, after switching to another tab or App the pdf is not visible anymore and also black (see sreenshot). I have tried reinstalling Firefox and also start in troubleshoot mode. What is the issue??

Thanks.

Sebastian

I use a notetaking app called xournal++, which is helpful with graphic tablets.

There is this issue that seems persistent, When I annotate anything via xournal++, I export it to pdf and view it on firefox, The highlighting which is supposed to be slightly transparent, Appears completely opaque, blocking text underneath it

Now I Would normally contact the xournal team, but it seems this issue is only present in mozilla's pdf reader

I have tried opening other pdfs, although the same results occur

(Also apologies in advance I have no clue which category this should be in)

Hello I just filled out a pdf and the font or writing came out blue I want it in black is there some where in Firefox i can get it in black w font or writing please Advise thank you

I just went to The IRS and filled out a pdf form to change my address and the print or font was in blue text I Want it it to always be in Black font text please let me know how to do it. I have font contrast and blacken as extensions. Do I need to do t in my windows 10 computer

I recently noticed that EVERY pdf I open for reading is being saved in my computer's Downloads folder! DESPITE my Settings "Ask where to save files before downloading" and "Ask to open or save files." I am enrolled in an online certification program: There is LOTS of reading. LOTS of information being shared through the class portal. I just discovered this mess a couple of weeks ago.

Today, I added a check mark to Other Files under Settings: "Delete private window downloads on close." I'm hoping this will resolve the problem. Am I missing something??? WHY is my longtime browser doing me like this?

FYI: I'm using the Windows 11 OS on my six-year-old laptop. My Firefox (152.0.5) stays current.

Once comments are added to a .pdf in Firefox, how can the comments be saved? The highlights show up in downloaded.pdf but when opened again in Firefox, the comments are gone. I want tosave the edited [with comments] document..how can I do that?

I was in the process adding text for over an hour when the entire document flipped. It is a PDF I am editing on FireFox. I have done this many times on different documents without this problem.

I have noted other inconsistent behaviors--am I the only one?

Thanks any help, Marshall

How to download a pdf without secure download ? I thought windows defender was the problem, but I can download a pdf without cleaning it with chrome.

My tax return declaration is made using a spreadsheet like pdf document, and when downloading it with firefox, the cleaned document cannot be filled in.

When viewing pdf files created from MS Word (.docx) documents and sent to me I see white lines across some images but not all. This happens with Firefox on Windows 11 and linux mint (various versions). It is present on the images from the file as received and after uploading to a website. The images are OK if viewed using Opera or other browsers but the same problem is present on Thunderbird. The file below has the problem on 2 images when viewed on Firefox. https://www.kass.org.uk/Documents/NewsletterFrom251114/20260304%20March%20Newsletter.pdf I have caused the writer of the article a lot of trouble because I blamed her file which seems to be OK. Can you help? Thanks Brian

idk, what i did, but i assume it's most likely user error. but i don't even know where to go from where i'm at.

ok, i'm going to attempt to identify what is happening. [guess] .pdf website previews are messing up the font when converting the .pdf to an image asset for the website to use as a current web asset, when the .pdf is updated. (makes sense really, smart drag & drop update of a .pdf menu, has instruction to make the end users browser do the work for you. kind of a one and done webpage coding for older guys that can't type, let alone edit Html, or even use Wix. some people just don't "compute" hard R or not. lol )

i don't even know where to start. i mean Mozilla is probably referencing it's own "lib.moz" which is just probably it's own personal link to an existing Lib file so it can pull it in and do what it needs to do with it without Root etc.

that is probably working fine as it renders (opens) the .pdf fine whence it's downloaded it. so all that i've talked about might not be the problem.

there is probably some mozilla function calling that to convert the .pdf as an image web asset so that it can show a preview of the current .pdf available for download.

that converter is messing up the font recognition, and building a preview image with messed up font characters (why it looks like Wing-Dings). but i don't even know where to start, and i don't think a new install will solve this (kinda overkill, and any residual files may still remain.)

i'm adding a fastfetch

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
BIOS (UEFI)          F20 (4.6)
Board                X79-UD3 (1.1)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
CPU                  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820 (8) @ 3.80 GHz
CPU Cache (L1)       4x32.00 KiB (D), 4x32.00 KiB (I)
CPU Cache (L2)       4x256.00 KiB (U)
CPU Cache (L3)       10.00 MiB (U)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
GPU                  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER [Discrete]
Vulkan               1.4.341 - NVIDIA [610.43.02]
OpenCL               3.0 CUDA 13.3.44
OpenGL               4.6.0 NVIDIA 610.43.02
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Display (VG248)      1920x1080 @ 1.5x in 24", 60 Hz [External] *
Display (VG248)      1920x1080 @ 1.5x in 24", 60 Hz [External]
Display (TOSHIBA-TV) 1920x1080 @ 1.5x in 72", 60 Hz [External]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Memory               9.66 GiB / 31.26 GiB (31%)
Swap                 12.00 KiB / 1.91 GiB (0%)
Disk (/)             675.49 GiB / 7.22 TiB (9%) - ext4
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
OS                   Linux Mint 22.3 x86_64
OS Age               99 days
Uptime               5 days, 2 hours, 40 mins
Packages             2452 (dpkg), 18 (flatpak)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Kernel               Linux 6.17.0-35-generic
Bootmgr              Ubuntu - shimx64.efi
gcc                  13.3.0
Init System          systemd 255.4-1ubuntu8.16
Shell                bash 5.2.21
LM                   lightdm-autologin 1.30.0 (X11)
DE                   Cinnamon 6.6.7
WM                   Muffin (X11)
Terminal             GNOME Terminal 3.52.0
Terminal Font        MesloLGS Nerd Font Mono (12pt)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Mozilla Firefox 152.0.1 " updates are manage by your operating system."

re-posted from; [[Why is Firefox PDF printing so strange?|https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1275786#answer-1276068]] and edited: reasons; support ticket gudelines [[Posting support requests|https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mozilla-support-rules-guidelines#w_subjects-covered-in-the-support-forum]]

[[i somewhat found an "answer" though i'd hardly call that "solved."|https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1275786#answer-1276068]]

i still say a Lib in a repo needs updated, within, or perhaps up stream of the project to reflect "commonly used fonts" if applicable (i know that's the trick, 'is it FOSS') yet other browsers use it, though idk if they're FOSS... i'd need to know what i'm looking for to confirm that or not, and do something about that (again most likely upstream, as the PDF Viewer is probably it's own project (or even several), retooled by Mozilla for Firefox.