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A
Anonymous
March 17, 2015
Answered

Any way to repair corrupted pdf file?

  • March 17, 2015
  • 3 replies
  • 147934 views

I created a pdf document on a my PC and it became corrupted with all these strange characters.

Now when I open the document I get an error message that wasn't coming up before im hoping this msg will bring some light into the situation.

If anyone can help me id be very thankful

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer try67

No idea, but it's certainly not a PDF file.


I would report this issue to the company/person who provided you this file. Let them know that their files are not valid PDF files, despite their name.

3 replies

J
justins47096823
Participating Frequently
June 30, 2016

Not sure if my issue is similar or not, but I also have a pdf file that will not open, I have tried multiple repair tools and none seems to work. Here is a clip of the error I get when trying to open in Acrobat.

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
June 30, 2016

Open the file in a plain-text editor (like Notepad).

Does it start with the line "%PDF-1.5" (or a different number, like 1.4)? If not, it's not really a PDF file at all.

J
justins47096823
Participating Frequently
June 30, 2016

It looks a little like this...

I don't understand, what would of caused it to become like this?

Document Geek
Community Expert
Document GeekCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 24, 2016

I know you're on a PC, but if have access to a mac, try opening the PDF in Preview. I wrote an article about that here: Using Preview as a Workaround when Acrobat Pro Won't Open a PDF File

G
gkaiseril
Inspiring
June 24, 2016

Be very careful with Apple's Preview. It is well known to corrupt PDF forms as well as other types of PDFs.

The internal PDF format is very complex and consists of many data streams that can be compressed. If any of this content is removed there could be no possible way to determine the missing data.

As already mentioned, having a backup is important.

Many PDFs consist of binary data and if the 7th 9or 8th bit of the byte is removed by a text editor or email program, that missing data can not be restored.

S
Adobe Employee
Steve Cordero
Adobe Employee
March 17, 2015

What is the error message?  Can you post a screenshot of it? 

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