Why won't my PDF file open?

PDFs can fail to open due to a broken cross-reference table, a truncated download, invalid objects, or a non-standard structure created by some scanners and editors. Our tool identifies which of these issues affects your file and repairs it automatically.

Is my file uploaded to a server?

No. PDF Repair runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript — your file is never sent anywhere, which also makes it fast and lets it work offline once the page has loaded.

Can this tool fix password-protected PDFs?

It can recover files encrypted with an empty user password (common with some scanning software), but it cannot bypass or remove a real password you don't know.

Why does my PDF open in my browser but fail in online tools?

Browsers and viewers like Chrome's built-in reader use a tolerant parser (similar to PDF.js) that overlooks many structural errors. Strict tools like pdf-lib follow the PDF specification exactly and reject the same file. PDF Repair runs both approaches — and a rasterized rebuild as a last resort — so a file that only 'half works' elsewhere can be normalized and used everywhere, including in other LazyParadise tools via Send To.

Will repairing my PDF change its content?

If your file only needed structural normalization, the content is unchanged — text, images, and formatting are preserved. Only in the rare case where the file is rebuilt from rendered pages does the appearance change.

What does 'rasterized' repair mean and why did my text stop being selectable?

Rasterized repair is the last-resort recovery path: when a file is too corrupted for either parser to read its internal structure, we render each page as an image using the same engine browsers use to display PDFs, then rebuild a new PDF from those images. This recovers the visual content, but the underlying text objects are gone, so you can no longer select or search the text — the tool warns you clearly when this happens.