Pdf document with message

Report · Apr 02, 2018

One of my PDF documents that I created in Adobe Acrobat stopped opening. Now it opens only with message The file is corrupt or damaged. I checked my other documents, and it are opened without any problems and errors. What could provoke this message? And how can I handle it?

Report · Apr 02, 2018

This is usually a pretty good indication that there is something wrong with your file. Acrobat can correct some problems with PDF files automatically, and most times, you would not even notice on a fast computer (there is a message that pops up for a short time). So, if Acrobat says that the file is corrupt, there is very likely nothing you can do to rescue this file. There are two things you can check to see with what type of corruption you are dealign with: Check the size of the file. If it's zero bytes, then you know that it cannot be a valid PDF file (a valid PDF file always needs to have at least one page in it, which would by definition make it not an empty file). You can also try to open the PDF file in a text editor and look at the first couple of lines. You should see something like this:

%PDF-1.6

%öäüß

The version number can be different, but it always needs to start with a "%PDF-"

If you don't see that, then you also don't have a valid PDF file.

It is also possible that the end of the file got corrupted, but that's much harder for somebody without a good understanding of the PDF file format to diagnose.

As to how to handle this: You need to go back to a backup copy of your file. If you do not have a backup strategy in place, this may be a good time to plan for something like this in the future.

Posts like yours always attract the attention of scammers who try to sell you a PDF repair solution. I've tried a lot of them and none of them does what they claim to do, so don't let anybody convince you to click on a link, upload your file, or pay for something that does not work.

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Report · Apr 02, 2018

This is usually a pretty good indication that there is something wrong with your file. Acrobat can correct some problems with PDF files automatically, and most times, you would not even notice on a fast computer (there is a message that pops up for a short time). So, if Acrobat says that the file is corrupt, there is very likely nothing you can do to rescue this file. There are two things you can check to see with what type of corruption you are dealign with: Check the size of the file. If it's zero bytes, then you know that it cannot be a valid PDF file (a valid PDF file always needs to have at least one page in it, which would by definition make it not an empty file). You can also try to open the PDF file in a text editor and look at the first couple of lines. You should see something like this:

%PDF-1.6

%öäüß

The version number can be different, but it always needs to start with a "%PDF-"

If you don't see that, then you also don't have a valid PDF file.

It is also possible that the end of the file got corrupted, but that's much harder for somebody without a good understanding of the PDF file format to diagnose.

As to how to handle this: You need to go back to a backup copy of your file. If you do not have a backup strategy in place, this may be a good time to plan for something like this in the future.

Posts like yours always attract the attention of scammers who try to sell you a PDF repair solution. I've tried a lot of them and none of them does what they claim to do, so don't let anybody convince you to click on a link, upload your file, or pay for something that does not work.

Report · Jun 06, 2019

Karl,

What does the

%öäüß

line mean? I couldn't find it in the spec.

Is it the PDF magic number?

Report · Jun 06, 2019

Read 7.5.2 File Header

Report · Jun 06, 2019

And note that, while it does have a specific reason for being there, it is basically a comment - any line starting % is a comment. It is not required, but Acrobat puts it in all the files it creates. It is NOT a magic number as its contents may change. The magic is %PDF in the first four characters.