Repair PDF
Rebuild a corrupted or 'cannot be opened' PDF by regenerating its internal structure - all in your browser.
Drop a damaged PDF here
or click to browse
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Something not working as it should? Report an issue with Repair PDF
About Repair PDF
A PDF that refuses to open is usually not as broken as it looks. The page content is often intact and the damage is in the cross reference table, the index that tells a reader where each object lives in the file. Corrupt that and readers report the document as damaged even though the pages are still there.
This happens after an interrupted download, a failed transfer, a crash during save, or storage problems on a drive or USB stick. It also happens when a file has been produced by software that writes slightly malformed PDFs which strict readers reject.
Repair works by scanning the file for valid objects directly, ignoring the broken index, and rebuilding the structure around what it finds. If the pages survived, this generally recovers them.
It is worth being honest about the limits. If the file was truncated mid transfer, the missing bytes are simply gone and no tool can invent them, though the pages that did arrive can usually be recovered. Encrypted files that lost their header may not be recoverable at all. Repair often returns most of a document rather than all of it, so check the result before discarding your only copy.
How to repair pdf
- Load the damaged file
Drop it in. Files that other readers refuse to open can still be read here.
- Run the repair
Valid objects are located and the document structure is rebuilt around them.
- Check what came back
Review the recovered pages before relying on the result, and keep the original until you are satisfied.
Frequently asked questions
What causes a PDF to become corrupted?
Most often an interrupted download or transfer, a crash while saving, or a failing drive. The damage is usually to the cross reference table rather than to the page content itself.
Will I get all my pages back?
Often, but not always. If the file was truncated the missing data is genuinely gone. Repair recovers whatever valid content is present, which is frequently most of the document.
Is it safe to repair a confidential document?
Yes, and this is one of the better reasons to use a local tool. Uploading a damaged file to a repair service means handing over a document you cannot open yourself and cannot check first.
The repair did not work. What else can I try?
Try opening the file in a different reader first, since some are far more tolerant of malformed structure. If the file is only a few kilobytes it was almost certainly truncated during transfer, and downloading it again is the better route.