Unable to Open PDF Attachment from Outlook

Report · Apr 21, 2021

Hello, I am recieving an error that states Adobe Acrobat Reader could not open "FileName" 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). Has anyone found a solution to this error? I have already tried the following troubleshooting steps:

Edit registry value for Adobe from article I found online.
Uninstalled and reinstalled Adobe Reader
Ran repair on Adobe Reader twice

I know it is not the computer itself, because I can open other PDFs just fine.

Report · Apr 21, 2021

Hi Megan

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you are unable to open the PDF attachment and getting the above error.

The error comes when a PDF file is corrupt or damaged and Adobe Reader tries to open it, but when it finds that there is an issue with the PDF, it throws the error.

It seems that the email server has corrupted the file by encoding it incorrectly. Please ask the original sender to zip the PDF file, or share it using cloud storage like Dropbox or Google Drive instead of email.

You can also refer and try the suggestions from the following Adobe article and discussions Resolve damaged document error when opening PDF files

Are you on a Mac or Windows machine and what is the version?

What is the version of Adobe Reader DC installed? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the latest version 21.01.20149 installed Go to Help > Check for Updates and reboot the computer once.

Regards

Amal