Repair Corrupted & Damaged PDF Files
Rebuild broken PDF cross-reference tables and recover unreadable document pages.
Drop your PDF here
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PDF files up to 100 MB
How to use Repair PDF
- 1Upload corrupted PDFDrop the damaged or unopenable PDF file into the uploader.
- 2Rebuild structureOur repair parser rebuilds page trees and cross-reference streams.
- 3Download repaired PDFOpen and read your recovered document.
Your files are processed over an encrypted connection and deleted automatically within one hour. Nothing is shared with anyone.
Repair PDF: what to know before you start
What "corrupted" usually means
A PDF is an object graph plus a cross-reference table telling readers where each object lives. Most corruption is damage to that table rather than to the content: the pages are still in the file, but the map pointing at them is wrong, so readers refuse to open it.
This happens when a download is interrupted, a file is copied off failing storage, a transfer is made in text mode rather than binary, or an application crashes mid-save. In all of these the page data is usually intact.
Two repair passes
The first pass re-parses the object graph and writes a fresh file with a clean cross-reference table. This is the good outcome: text stays selectable, images keep their resolution, and the document is structurally identical to what it should have been.
If the file is too damaged to parse at all, a second pass uses a far more forgiving parser to recover whatever page data it can find and rebuilds the document from what it renders. That result is image-based - the text is no longer selectable - but a readable image-based document is considerably better than an unopenable file.
What repair cannot do
If the bytes for a page are genuinely gone - a truncated download that stopped a third of the way through - no tool can invent them. You will be told the file could not be rebuilt rather than handed a silently incomplete document.
Encrypted files must be unlocked first. Repair cannot operate on content it cannot read, and it will say so rather than producing an empty result.
Frequently asked questions
How does PDF repair work?
It bypasses broken header data and reconstructs valid PDF syntax and page streams.
Is my data safe during repair?
Yes. Files are processed securely and deleted automatically.
Is this tool free?
Yes. Every tool on WorkSathi is free to use with no sign up, no watermark on your result and no daily limit.
What happens to my files?
Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed, and then deleted automatically within one hour. We never open, share or sell your documents.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The tools work in any modern browser on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS - there is nothing to install.
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