Repair a damaged PDF
A file that no longer opens is often repairable: a broken cross-reference table, a truncated ending, a missing object. The structure is rebuilt entirely on your device, and the original is left untouched.
Free · 100% local — nothing is uploaded- 1Choose the file that refuses to open.
- 2Run the repair: the structure is read back object by object.
- 3Download the repaired PDF.
How to repair a damaged PDF
A file that no longer opens is not necessarily lost: most often its cross-reference table is broken, its end was truncated by an interrupted transfer, or an object is missing. Choose the file, run the repair: the structure is read back object by object, rebuilt from what is still readable, and you get a PDF that opens. What can be repaired is; what has been lost is not reinvented. The repair happens entirely inside your browser, which counts twice over here: a damaged file is often the last copy of a document, and one does not send it to a stranger to save it. The original file is not modified. A repaired file then reopens in the editor like any other, and saves again cleanly.
Before concluding that it is dead
Check three things first: that the file is not simply password-protected — the error message looks very much alike — that it has finished downloading, and that its size is not zero bytes. If the document was recovered from a failing drive or from a recycle bin, make a copy of it before any attempt.
Frequently asked questions
Which faults are fixed?
Structural faults: an invalid cross-reference table, a truncated end of file, wrong stream lengths, orphaned objects. Every correction is named in the report.
Is lost content recovered?
What has really been erased from the file cannot come back. The repair recovers everything still present, even when the file no longer knows where to find it.
What if the PDF asks for a password?
That is not damage: the file is encrypted. Use Unlock, with the password.
Which symptoms point to a repairable PDF?
“Cannot open file”, a blank page, a document that opens on your machine but not elsewhere, or a reader announcing the wrong number of pages. Most of these are structural, and those can be rebuilt; a blank page caused by a missing font, on the other hand, is not a structural failure.
Is the repaired file identical to the original?
Its content, yes, as far as it is still present. Its structure, no: it is rewritten cleanly, which changes the file’s size and often fixes faults nobody had noticed.