There was a problem reading this document (14)

[SiliconExpert]

Hello,

I'm trying to open document in adobe acrobat professional or reader it gives me this error

however it work good with in chrome

is there any fix for this

[Karl Heinz Kremer · Accepted solution]

This is an indication for a corrupt PDF file. When you hold down the CTRL key when you click on the OK button, you will get a more technical explanation of the error. Chrome - being a much more basic PDF viewer - may not even look at that section of the PDF document because it may be related to information it cannot even display.

[SiliconExpert]

hello Karl,

thanks for your reply

I hold down CTRL and I got this message

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

PDF is a pretty complex format (the specification is about 1000 pages long), and if you don't know what you are doing when you write a PDF generator, it's pretty easy to get things wrong. In this case, the specification is expecting a dictionary object (which is one of the containers that are used in the PDF file to group other "stuff"), but it's not finding that. We don't know if there is another type of object there instead or if there is nothing at all in the location where the dictionary is supposed to be. This again shows that the PDF file in question is corrupt. You can complain to the author or distributor of the file and see if they can provide you with a version that does not have this problem. Again, just because Chrome seems to display the PDF file without complaints (we don't know if it is not silently ignoring parts of the PDF file), does not mean that the file is good. In Acrobat Pro, you could run the "check for syntax errors" profile in Preflight to get more information about what's wrong, but you very likely would not be able to fix the problem.

[davidl30204414]

I don't know if anyone else is still interested, but I got this message after trying to save my document as a reduced size PDF.  I tried several ways to make it work.

What I did finally was opened it in PDF Expert.  I saved it as a reduced file size PDF.  It is now smaller so that I can attach it to an email.  I also confirmed that the reduced document opens properly in Acrobat Pro.

[AnatMeow]

Reducing the size file solved it. Thank you!

[michaelxxx8]

yes, both pdf expert adn Apple Preview seem to be more stable with pdf documents than Acrobat Pro  -which rather than behaving like a helpful accountant in my business efforts - gets stuck in like an angry auditor who's s*xually frustrated or something and determined to make a point.  I use acrobat for OCR on 1000 page documents, and only when I have to, it's so buggy that this cant be accidental, and externalising blame like this to pdf creators for making pdfs that fail to meet specification is typically poor, the error messages never tell you on what page the error has been found, or what triggered them or how to fix them or - even better for pro software - simply and quietly reparing the error or mistake rather than screaing fould and rolling around like primadonna footballer in a penalty zone.

[Abanda30842148we8j]

Found what the error was but how do i solve it?

[eliash93298849]

Karl heinz kremer is right in some way, however it is not true, that it cannot be fixed. The file can have the initial of a pdf file and still not be a pdf, because it might be corrupted in some way.

SOLUTION!:

To deal with this problem, you can simply open the file, then export it as a pdf. When this is done you should be able to open the file.

STEPS:

1. Open file in its primary form not with the adobe tool!

2. Export it as an PDF formatted file

3. Now open it on adobes desktop app

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Actually, it is true that it cannot be fixed (or only with great difficulty if you know what the incorrect information is supposed to be because e.g. you analyzed a large number of files with the same problem from the same PDF generator or files that were processed by the same workflow). The error message is very specific, and suggests that Acrobat found enough information in the file to recogn it as a PDF document. However, while processing it, it ran into a problem from which it cannot recover: it is expecting a dictionary object and found nothing, or the wrong object type. And, even if you knew exactly what was wrong you still would need very specific tools to fix this problem. And,  you would need to know how to use these tools. So to reiterate, once you get an error like that, there usually is nothing the end user can do to fix the problem.

[fumblerooskie]

I was able to make this work by exporting the file to PostScript and redistilling it, which took a while on a 242pp book.

[logls]

This worked for me! Thanks!

[jerr.addison]

I opened a corrupt PDF file in Microsoft Word and then from Word exported as pdf checking the box to reduce file size, and now it opens in Acrobat Pro!

[defaulto6t136sxfg9b]

This worked. Thank you! 

[defaultf8vezefs9p8c]

worked for me too thanks!

[lorend87036146]

An easy workaround is to save the PDF as .tiff images, then combine those .tiffs into a new PDF. Be sure to save the .tiffs to a separate folder; each page of the PDF is exported as it's own file.

Workaround:

1. File --> Save as other... --> TIFF

2. Select all TIFFs --> Combine files in Acrobat

3. Save newly created PDF.

[Christa257073581h8t]

I know this is an old solution but I just came across this problem with a corrupt file and this is the only thing that worked for me. Thank you! 

[Mart Tiemensma]

The same problem (error opening this document (14) occurs when editing a file in MAC preview. The file is not corrupt and opens fine i all pdf-read-programs except acrobat. It is a acrobat bug.

My workaround i:

1. open the file in Preview.

2. export as pdf (in "files"). 

3. open this new file in acrobat.

4. No problems.

(5. Some files shows the pages in a wrong direction. Acrobat will not save the file after turning the pages.

6. open the file in preview, turn the pages and save. After that the problem is solved. The file opens correctly in Acrobat.)

Would be nice if Acrobat fixes the bug.

[Alharthi]

Thank you for this great tip, uasully when I scan a document it shows no error, but when I used MAC preview to delete  two pages, the error happens and I was viewing white pages in Acrobat Reader.

I do the above procedure often but this is the first time it happens.

All the mensioned applications and are up to date using macOS Catalina 10.15.3 (19D76)

Anyways, your tip solve my problem, Many Thanks again 🙂 

[wen4]

Mart_Tiemensma, my 250 page dissertation and my sanity thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[dfgsdh]

Thank you, I realize my pdf file was made in macOS.

"opens fine in all pdf-read-programs except acrobat", That's true. Maybe some problems with the pdf file, but at least acrobat should display the content like other "basic" pdf viewers, rather than showing blank pages.

[chrish69798248]

The issue with the solutions of exporting to tiff or printing as PDF is all bookmarks are lost and the PDF document becomes a PDF image, quaility is deminished and file size multiples.  I found opening the PDF in Acrobat and inserting a page in the thumbnail section will clear the issue.  No thumbnail images will show, but the image numbers will.  Just right-click the blank space where the thumbnail should be and choose Insert Pages...A Blank Page and boom, the PDF is "fixed".  The blank page can be deleted afterwards.  I discovered this about a few months back and I have fixed five "corrupt" PDFs since.  Good luck

[notannhavoc]

great - that  fixed it for me as well!

[dfgsdh]

Thanks! This is the quickest and best solution. Just insert a blank page and all pages are shown immediately.

[Emma_A]

This worked for me, thank you for posting. I had a PDF sent to me to use as a reference. The first page was fine but as soon as I went to click to page 2 I'd get the error "The document could not be saved. There was a problem reading this document (23)."

I tried all the other solutions posted above but they didn't work for me,  I tried to 'update' Acrobat by scrolling down from the Help menu and it would tell me there is a newer version of Acrobat (although Creative Cloud didn't flag an update), I'd click to update and would then get the message "Cannot download update files. Please verify that you are connected to the internet and check for updates again later. Error: 1113"... I am connected to the internet!!

Simply put, adding an extra page sorted the issue, thank you for sharing the solution!!