Repair a Damaged PDF and Get Its Pages Back
or drop files here
A PDF that refuses to open usually still holds most of its pages. This tool reads the broken bytes on your machine, works through several rescue methods from the most faithful to the most forgiving, and explains what it found wrong.
Diagnose, rebuild, recover.
Drop in the broken file
Files that other apps reject are still accepted here. If it opens at all, you see how many pages it has; if it does not, the tool says so and carries on.
Diagnose and recover
The header, end marker, index pointer and object boundaries are checked first. Then the recovery methods run from gentlest to most drastic, stopping at the first one that returns pages.
Read the report, save the file
You see which method worked, a plain list of what was wrong, and how many pages could not be saved. The repaired copy keeps your file name with "-repaired" added.
How good PDFs end up broken.
Corruption rarely means the content is gone. More often the map that tells a reader where things are has been damaged, and a new map can be drawn.
Interrupted transfers
A weak connection or a closed laptop lid can leave a PDF a few kilobytes short. The missing tail usually holds the index, which is exactly what a rebuild replaces.
"Failed to load PDF document"
Browsers and desktop readers give vague errors when the structure is off. Repair tells you which part was broken, then writes a version those readers accept.
Attachments with junk in front
Some mail gateways and document systems prepend stray bytes before the PDF header. Strict readers give up at the first byte; the rebuild finds the real start and moves on.
Scanned archives on old drives
Years-old scans copied between disks and USB sticks sometimes lose their structure but keep their page pictures. Those JPEG pages can be pulled straight out of the bytes.
Files other tools choke on
If merging, compressing or printing a PDF fails with an error, the file may be subtly malformed. A clean rewrite with a new index often lets the next tool finish.
Exports cut short by a crash
When an app crashes mid-export, objects can be left half written. Whole pages that did make it into the file are copied into a fresh document and the broken ones are counted.
Inside a broken PDF, and which method fixes what.
A PDF is a header line (%PDF-1.7), then a long run of numbered objects: pages, fonts, images, page text. Near the end sits the cross-reference table, which records the exact byte position of every object, followed by a startxref pointer to that table and an %%EOF marker. A reader jumps to the end first, follows the pointer, and uses the table to find everything else.
That design is why small faults are fatal to strict readers. Cut a file short and the table, the pointer and often the list of pages vanish together, because writers put them last. Add a few stray bytes to the front and every recorded position is off by that amount. The objects themselves, though, are usually intact.
So the first method ignores the old table entirely, scans the whole file for objects, and writes a new one; the result is checked by reopening it before you get it. If that fails, pages are copied one at a time so a single bad page is dropped instead of sinking the file. Next, any page object still lying around is given a new page list. After that, complete JPEG images are lifted from the raw bytes, and finally pdf.js draws whatever pages it can still open. Content that was never written to the file cannot be invented by any of them.
| Method | Fixes | You get back |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Full rebuild | Wrong byte offsets, stray bytes before the header, missing index pointer | Everything: text, fonts, images, links, with a fresh index |
| 2. Page-by-page copy | One or a few pages with broken objects | Every readable page, text intact; bookmarks and document settings stay behind |
| 3. Gather loose pages | Page list lost, typically from a cut-off file | Surviving pages with text, ordered by object number |
| 4. Rescue JPEG images | Structure unreadable, but scans are intact | One image page per complete JPEG, sized as a 150 DPI scan |
| 5. Render what opens | Nothing structural worked | Pages redrawn at 150 DPI as images; run OCR for text |
Questions answered.
Why does my PDF say it is damaged or fail to open?
Will the text still be selectable after repair?
Why are some pages missing from the repaired file?
The pages came back in the wrong order. Can that be fixed?
Why did I get extra pages showing a logo or a photo?
My PDF opens fine. Is there any point repairing it?
Can it fix a file that is not really a PDF?
Is the broken file sent to a server for repair?
More tools you might need.
Related Guides & Tutorials
How to Repair and Recover Corrupted PDF Files That Won't Open (Recovery Guide)
Why PDFs get damaged, how to tell whether a broken file can be saved, and how to rebuild a missing cross-reference table or end marker to get the pages back.
How to Convert CMYK PDF to sRGB for Web and Social Media Sharing (True Color Guide)
Why a print-ready CMYK PDF looks off on screens and social media, and how to convert it to sRGB in InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro or Ghostscript, or export the pages as images.
Why Is My Printer Printing PDF Pages in Landscape Instead of Portrait? (Orientation Fix)
Why portrait PDF pages print sideways: automatic orientation, a landscape driver default, two pages per sheet, or a rotated page in the file. Fixes for Acrobat, Chrome, Preview and Windows.