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@rabbitshavefangs

Thank you for your two-star review of this free, simple plugin. Before today I have never heard from you, so it is unfortunate to make your acquaintance this way.

I am sorry this simple, free plugin did not suit your rigorous demands. Asking for help for a free plugin with a two star review, I’m not sure what to say other than that:

1) I recommend you look at paid plugins available on the market to watermark your files, keeping in mind that you still have very rigorous demands with a 500-page 138MB file. You are placing heavy demands on your server to parse those PDFs into memory and spit them back out each time a customer requests a file. As far as server hygiene,

2) I recommend you hire a developer to help you configure your server and customize said plugins to fulfill your rigorous demands.

Oh, don’t worry. I don’t plan on leaving the 2-stars up as my rating. I just wanted to set it as such for my initial interaction until I could obtain additional details.

If this is the way the PDF watermarking tool functions it definitely won’t be a good fit for my company even at the paid level due to the fact that it creates a new file that is stored on the server every single time someone makes a purchase. In addition, the server is taxed with watermarking every single page each time makes it difficult as well. I wonder what OneBookShelf Inc. uses as their watermarking is nearly instantaneous and the downloads are triggered immediately with every single page watermarked, even with products that are 1000 pages in length.

Thank you for responding to my inquiry so quickly. I’ll keep looking for other options. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear about them.

Thank you! Changed to 5-stars.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by rabbitshavefangs.

Good morning @rabbitshavefangs

The paid version does not necessarily “creates a new file that is stored on the server every single time someone makes a purchase.” You can read more in documentation at web.little-package.com about how the plugin works and why files must be at least temporarily/momentarily stored on the server. Even with the free version it is possible to have these files immediately deleted using Woo’s Force download method. However, with a file of your size this might still not work reliably because that deletion is hooked into PHP shutdown, while the file might still be actively delivering. As I said before, you’re asking A LOT of a rudimentary (free) software, and especially of your server.

I doubt OneBookShelf Inc. paid $0 for their watermarking solution, and whether even that (expensive software) worked out-of-the-box. Bottom line, to expect any free plugin to work exactly how you would like is not going to work out often. Every good implementation of software involves hands-on tweaking and fine-tuning, this one included. Except this one has zero capital behind it… and we all know what a difference money makes.

You could look into having a custom watermarking solution built for you using SetaSign’s wonderful PDF-parsing libraries, which would involve much less overhead server demand, and allow something closer to a “nearly instantaneous” download. You will not get that with any plugin working with FPDF/TCPDF on a 500-page PDF, not without serving off something closer to a supercomputer.

That’s the (unfortunate) truth for you. I would have loved the opportunity to help you in the forums before you posted a poor review, so I really appreciate you reconsidering how you posted it. Thank you.

Hello,

I am not “asking” you to do the impossible. I was simply asking questions.

You reference some “forums” that I could contact you in but I know of no such thing, only WordPress’ plugin site. Also, as I said in my last reply, I changed my review to 5-stars at that time after your reply. I just needed to choose something. I am a top reviewer on Google and when I review, I constantly update my reviews based on my experience over time. I don’t review a restaurant once and leave it, I update it each time and adjust the stars accordingly.

Just from a customer standpoint, I wanted to let you know that you come off very adversarial as opposed to helpful. In customer service, it is very important to attempt to help every single customer not drive them away.

IF I was going to purchase you’ve fully turned me off to that prospect.

I’m going to change my review back to 2-stars now because I am not happy with the PDF watermarking tool or the customer service and negativity I’ve experienced.

Good luck and I wish you the best. I hope you truly focus on the positive and not the negative, when a customer is already having a negative experience and you add more negativity to it, the overall result is quite obviously not a positive one.

I really do truly wish you the best and hope you focus on (or get someone else to handle) customer service. I provide free products myself and I help each person that comes for help as if they paid for them because I want them to come back to me in the future when they decide to purchase something.

You can review how you like, I’m just sorry you choose to use reviews in retaliation when you infer a “tone.” I was surprised when you changed it briefly to 5-star review this morning, especially since my second response is just a repeat of my first.

Three things I’d like to add: one, I’ve been in customer service for 25 years, including as a bedside nurse. Two, nobody has ever reviewed me online in this unique manner before, and I’ve been running online sales since 2010. Finally, I’ve been sharing WaterWoo since 2013 and you have the largest PDF of anyone yet. ??

I told you the free plugin likely won’t work for you, and that I probably cannot make it work for you. I understand that wasn’t what you wanted to hear, and I’m sorry I cannot help you. However, my response also included some valuable information about directions you can head, answering your question while managing expectations. Good luck on your hunt @rabbitshavefangs!

Oh sorry, forgot to point you to: https://www.ads-software.com/support/plugin/waterwoo-pdf/

(Each WP plugin has its own support forum.)