PDF

Repair PDF

Attempt to recover content from a damaged or partially-downloaded PDF. The tool rebuilds the cross-reference table and reassembles readable pages where possible.

On the way

Repair PDF is coming soon

Attempt to recover content from a damaged or partially-downloaded PDF. The tool rebuilds the cross-reference table and reassembles readable pages where possible.

We're still building this one. We'd rather not ship it until it works reliably end-to-end — no fake progress bars, no pretend success screens.

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Going deeper

When PDFs go bad

PDFs get corrupted in three common ways: incomplete downloads (the file is cut off mid-stream), storage media failures (bad sectors on a disk, file system corruption), and software bugs in the tool that created them (incorrect cross-reference tables, missing EOF markers). The symptoms vary — sometimes the file won't open at all, sometimes it opens but pages are missing, sometimes it opens but specific operations fail.

A repair tool tries to recover what's recoverable. It scans the file for valid PDF objects, rebuilds the cross-reference table that ties them together, and produces a new PDF containing whatever could be salvaged. The result is often a partial PDF — the readable pages, in order, without the broken ones.

The honest truth: not every corrupted PDF is recoverable. If the underlying bytes are missing, no tool can put them back. But for the most common forms of corruption (broken xref tables, missing trailers, truncated files), repair usually succeeds in saving most or all of the content.

What you get

Features

  • Rebuilds cross-reference tables

  • Recovers readable pages

  • Reports which pages were salvaged

  • Coming soon

Step by step

How to use

  1. 1

    Upload the damaged PDF.

  2. 2

    Click Repair.

  3. 3

    Download the recovered PDF.

Your privacy

How this tool handles your file

When this tool ships, your PDF will be processed in a per-request temp directory and deleted immediately afterwards.

Read more about our security practices or see our privacy policy.

Frequently asked

Common questions

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