Participating Frequently

Question

Cannot open pdf. Message says its corrupt or damaged

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
July 2, 2025
4 replies
2054 views

I cannot open a pdf file. I receive a message error saying the file it is either damaged or not supported. That's not true as I later opened it using Foxit PDF Reader.

Adobe Acrobat

Architecture: arm64

Processor: Apple M3 Pro

Build: 25.1.20529.0

AGM: 7.1.15

CoolType: 10.0.3

JP2K: 4.0.2.54782

MAC Sequoia 15.5

radzmar

Community Expert

Looks like some application left some extra text to the beginning of the file content, which is why the PDF is structured incorrectly. You can fix this in this case by opening the file in an text editor and remove everything before %PDF-1.4 …

rimesaAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you very much, everyone. It is an original and legitimate PDF file downloaded from the website of a reputable health insurance company. In any case, I will ask them if the problem originated with their company.

As for the fact that the application seems to leave some extra text at the beginning of the file content, I followed your instructions, deleting everything before %PDF-14, and I was able to open it using Adobe! Thank you very much. That's one more reason to ask the insurance company.

Notwithstanding the above, what continues to strike me is that I can open the original file in Foxit PDF Reader without making any changes.

radzmar

Community Expert

It is perhaps a little more lax with the PDF standard than Acrobat.

M

mk-will

Community Expert

@rimesa

Is the PDF you are trying to open stored locally on your hard-drive or is it stored on a network/cloud storage?

If network/cloud storage: try copying it to your local hard-drive and try to open it.

If that works it is a network related problem.

rimesaAuthor

Participating Frequently

Stored locally in my hard drive.

What is striking is that I was able to open it with the free Foxit PDF software, but I couldn't open it with Adobe Acrobat, which I pay for.

Thank you for your help.

rimesaAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you very much, that makes sense. When I receive a new document from my health insurance company, I will try opening it in Adobe Acrobat with the security features disabled.

It didnt work. This is the message:

"Adobe Acrobat could not open 'prueba.pdf' because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded). To create an Adobe PDF document, go to the source application. Then choose Save as Adobe PDF from the PDF dropdown in the Print dialog".

Later, I tried using the "Privileged location" feature (I put the file as a trusted one). It didn't work either.

I'm attaching one of the documents, in case it is useful.

Thank you for your help in advance.

prueba.pdf

Bernd Alheit

Community Expert

Can you share the file?

rimesaAuthor

Participating Frequently

Sadly not. It is a medical file.

kglad

Community Expert

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from using the community bugs">

rimesaAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you, next time I will do that.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded