How to repair a damaged PDF file
A PDF can get damaged by an interrupted download, a write error, a faulty USB stick or a failed export. The symptoms are an error message when opening, blank pages or parts of the document missing. The repair tool tries to rebuild the file’s structure and save as complete a copy as possible.
- Load the damaged file
Drop the PDF in the box above.
- Run the repair
PDFowo analyses the file and tries to rebuild its structure with the qpdf engine.
- Download the repaired copy
The result is saved as a new file, and the damaged original stays untouched.
What can be repaired
- damaged cross-reference tables (xref) that stop a PDF from opening
- a broken structure after an export from some program
- files in which some pages are still readable
Before you start
If you downloaded the file from the internet or an e-mail, try downloading it again first – often the problem is simply an interrupted download.
Frequently asked questions
Can every damaged PDF be repaired?
No. If parts of the data have been lost, the tool recovers only what is still readable.
Does the repair change the content of the document?
Not on purpose. The tool rebuilds the file structure and keeps the pages and objects it can read.
The file still won’t open after the repair. What now?
Ask the sender to send the document again, or export it once more from the program it was created in.