Repair PDF

Attempt to recover a corrupted or unreadable PDF file for free.

or drop your file here

Processed securely on our server, then auto-deleted within the hour.

Rebuild a damaged PDF that won't open, throws an error, or shows blank pages. Repair PDF reads every object still intact inside the file and writes a fresh, structurally correct document from it — a new page index, a new cross-reference table, and a clean trailer. Your text, fonts, and images are carried over as they are, not re-rendered. Upload the broken file, press Repair PDF, and download the rebuilt copy.

How to use Repair PDF

Upload the damaged PDF — a file with junk before the header or a missing %%EOF marker is fine, it does not need to open first.
Click "Repair PDF" and wait while the file is rebuilt. There are no settings to choose.
Download the repaired copy and open it to confirm the pages are there.

Who it is for

Repair PDF is the last thing to try before giving up on a file: a download that will not open, an email attachment that throws an error, a scan that came back with blank pages, or a document a crash left half-written. It is also used on old archives that open only in some readers, because a rebuilt structure usually fixes the disagreement between programs about a file that is technically valid.

How it works

The tool reads every object still intact inside the file and writes a fresh document from it — a new page index, a new cross-reference table and a clean trailer, which are the three things most commonly damaged.
Text, fonts and images are carried over as they are, not re-rendered, so a repair does not soften type or recompress pictures.
Extra bytes in front of the PDF header, a missing end-of-file marker and a wrong cross-reference table are all tolerated, which is why a file that will not open anywhere can still be read here.

What it cannot do

It cannot recover bytes that were never received. A download that stopped halfway has no page data to rebuild, and the tool says so rather than returning a document that quietly lost half its pages.
Repair is not decryption. An encrypted file stays encrypted and still needs its password.
If the first structural pass fails, a fallback rewrite is attempted, and that one can re-encode images — so a photograph-heavy recovery may be slightly larger or softer.
This runs on the server, so the file is uploaded for processing and the result is deleted once served.

Frequently asked questions

What kind of damage can this actually fix?

The structural kind: a broken or wrong cross-reference table, a missing or truncated trailer, extra bytes in front of the "%PDF-" header (common after a failed download or a mangled email attachment), and half-written objects left behind by a crashed program. Those are the faults that stop a reader opening a file even though the content is still inside it.

Can it recover pages that are missing?

No. If the bytes for a page were never in the file — for example a download that stopped halfway — nothing can bring them back. We rebuild everything that survived and tell you plainly if the file is too far gone, rather than handing back a document that quietly lost half its pages.

Will repairing change the quality of my text or images?

Not in the normal case. The repair is a lossless structural rewrite, so text stays selectable and images keep their original resolution. Only for files that resist that first pass do we fall back to re-writing the document, which can re-encode images.

My PDF is password protected — will repair remove the password?

No. Repair fixes structure and leaves any encryption exactly as it was; fixing a file is not the same as unlocking one. If you need the password taken off a file you own, use the Unlock PDF tool instead.