Repair PDF
Attempt to repair and recover a corrupted or structurally broken PDF file. Re-processes the PDF structure to fix common corruption issues.
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How to Repair PDF
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Structure Recovery
Rebuilds cross-reference tables and removes invalid objects that cause PDF readers to fail.
Cleaned & Optimised
The repair process also removes redundant objects and optimises the file, often reducing size.
Best-Effort Recovery
Works on partially corrupted files. Severely damaged files with missing critical structure may not recover.
What Does the Repair PDF Tool Do?
The Repair PDF tool attempts to fix structural problems in damaged or corrupted PDF files. It does this by loading the PDF through PyMuPDF's fault-tolerant parser (which can read incomplete or malformed PDFs), then rebuilding and saving it with maximum garbage collection, stream deflation, and structural cleaning.
Common problems it can resolve include:
- Incomplete or truncated files caused by interrupted downloads or failed exports
- Redundant, orphaned, or circular cross-reference entries
- Corrupt stream lengths or object headers
- Files that other tools reject but PyMuPDF can partially read
The output is a clean, standards-compliant PDF file. Files that are completely unreadable (total data corruption) cannot be repaired by any software tool.
When to Use the Repair Tool
- Failed downloads — PDFs downloaded over unstable connections sometimes arrive corrupted. Repair can often recover them.
- Export errors — PDF export from some applications produces malformed files. Repairing normalises the structure.
- Processing errors — If a PDF is rejected by a merge, split, or compress tool, try repairing it first.
- File size reduction — The repair process also runs garbage collection and deflation, which often reduces file size as a side effect.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will this recover a completely unreadable PDF?
Not necessarily. If the file is so corrupted that PyMuPDF cannot parse any content from it, repair will fail. The tool can only work with files where some recoverable structure exists. For catastrophic corruption, no software can guarantee recovery.
Does repair remove content from the PDF?
The repair process removes redundant and orphaned objects (unreferenced content that bloats the file) but preserves all pages, text, images, and functional content that PyMuPDF can read and write.
Will the file size change after repair?
Often yes — typically smaller. Repair runs garbage collection (removes orphaned objects) and deflates content streams, which usually reduces file size compared to a bloated or corrupted original.
Should I try this before other PDF tools fail?
Yes — if a PDF is rejected by the Merge, Split, Compress, or Protect tools with an error about invalid or unreadable content, running it through Repair first is the recommended first step.
Are files deleted after processing?
Yes — both original and repaired output are deleted within 15 minutes.