Unable to open a pdf file in adobe reader

[prateekg24718315]

Hi,

I have a program that generate invoice in SAP and mail that invoice to the user in PDF format.

When user tries to open that PDF file received using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (latest version), he is getting an error message saying - "There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired.".

I also tried to disable the 'Enable Enhanced Security' option under Preferences but still getting the same issue with Acrobat Reader.

Whereas the same file the user is able to open in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browser.

Please suggest why the same PDF file is behaving differently?

Thanks,

Prateek Gupta

[AkanchhaS]

Hi Prateekg,

As you have mentioned above, that "when trying to open the file through the Adobe Reader DC it gives the error message but same file is opened through the Google chrome or Microsoft Edge it opens fine."

So is that file is available online? Or how you are opening it through the Adobe Reader DC, do you download it locally in your computer?

If its online then download the file locally and then open through the Reader.

Share the workflow that you follow?  And also go through the troubleshooting steps suggested in help doc-

Resolve damaged document error when opening PDF files

Cannot Open Damaged File (Acrobat Reader)

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Akanchha

[prateekg24718315]

The fie is not online but I have local copy of a file on my desktop. If I open the file on desktop using chrome or Microsoft edge it opens fine. Whereas when I double click on file to open it with default application (Adobe acrobat reader DC) the file is giving error. I tested this on multiple machine with the same file but getting the same issue.

The file is starting with a tag -

%PDF-1.6

%âãÏÓ

The file is ending with a tag -

37966

%%EOF

Also I have already tried - Resolve damaged document error when opening PDF files  but the suggested solution not working.

[prateekg24718315]

More findings....This may help to understand the problem...

I have two version of same pdf files.

One is saved while generating invoice from SAP let say "Before_Mail.pdf"

The other one is saved after mailing the same invoice on outlook to the user let say "After_Mail.pdf".

As reported earlier the problem is with "After_Mail.pdf" file and the other one "Before_Mail.pdf" is opening fine in adobe reader.

So I compared the content of both the files and using some file compare tools and find that in "After_Mail.pdf" there some extra blank characters written at the end of file. So I removed those characters from the file and now the file "After_Mail.pdf" is working fine.

On the file compare tool these characters are looking like as shown below (some "." dot characters) -

...............................

...............................

...............................

...............................

...............................

...............................

May be I need to look at the code reading "Before_Mail.pdf" and mailing it as "After_Mail.pdf".

Please see if you can suggest some reason behind this behavior.

[waelali]

Hi Prateekg,

Did you get a solution for this issue ?

I have the same here

Thanks,

Wael Ali

[aruntn23]

HI,

Try to print the document by selecting the Print ICON at the top right corner,once you opened the PDF document in browser.

And then instead of printing it, Save it as PDF.

It worked for me..Hope it will help you too!

[Travis-ULD]

Chrome, Firefox and IE (Edge) browsers open my pdf, display the form fields and allow entering data without any issue. Adobe Reader DC however, doesn't play nice with a file that is opened in the browser, downloaded and opened locally.  Funny enough, if I download the file that was opened by Chrome, right click on it and select Chrome as the program to open the pdf, it displays fine and allows data entry as expected. Same goes for IE and Firefox, but Adobe Reader only displays the form fields and you can't enter anything (though it does appear to recognize the form fields being there). Unfortunately, when you print->save as pdf using Chrome, the information that was already entered in the form fields is retained, but any form fields that still need to be completed electronically are removed (the fields just don't exist anymore as your pdf is a flat file with everything dynamic removed when you print it). So, if you email the pdf to someone and they try to open it using your "Chrome printed/saved" pdf, the form fields aren't present. I can't figure out why browser pdf viewers work fine, but Adobe DC can't open the file and allow data to be entered.

[AkanchhaS]

This depends of the form's behavior. Also, Most of the web browsers uses its own pdf viewer. Why Adobe Acrobat doesn't allow to view or open those pdfs, it would be more clear if we look into the file.

Please upload the file on either document cloud or dropbox and share the link here.

Regards,

Akanchha

[Travis-ULD · Accepted solution]

Hi Akki_24,

I ended up figuring this out and it had to do with the version of pdf that I was generating and the font-type being used within the form fields. Hopefully, this is helpful to anyone generating forms in a pdf using libraries like fpdf + fpdm (written in php). I have since moved everything over to use the mpdf library (still php) and don't have the same problems now. I created a pdf template that had form fields in it using a free program called Scribus. I know, I know... I am in an Adobe forum suggesting that I used another product to create a pdf! However, I do own a copy of Acrobat DC and use it for everything else... For just this one application, I needed something else because the version of pdf that Adobe DC created (I did try to use it first) wasn't readable by the fpdf + fpdm libraries mentioned above (I had spent way too long already trying to tweak settings in Adobe DC, couldn't get it figured out and had already past a deadline to get my forms posted on our site).

Scribus generated pdfs only worked with my scripts if I saved them to version 1.3 (equivalent to Adobe legacy ver. 4 or 5, so the forms weren't pretty and didn't need to be). What I didn't realize however, is that when you go back that far (I remember those days... Ugh... I'm old...), you have to specify that a TrueType font (Helvetica for example) be used within the form fields when completing them in Adobe Reader. Not knowing this, I was trying to use Montserrat. I am assuming that if Adobe Reader detects that the pdf is saved as an older version, it applies the legacy code that governed a pdf back then to be able to interpret and display them properly. The reason that the browser pdf readers let a user fill in the field (from what I'm assuming) is because they must not revert back in time to when people knew who Austin Powers was, to follow whatever font limitations those versions applied. I could understand that Adobe Reader versions dating back that far specified which fonts (TrueType) that could be used to keep the document formatted nicely whereas, neither Chrome or Firefox even existed back in those days (unlike Adobe, they will never know what life was like when Tupac was around).

[AkanchhaS]

Hi Travis-ULD thanks for taking out time and sharing your findings. This might help any other user struggling with same issue.

Thanks,

Akanchha