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Cavara34

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 14, 2012
89
3
So I've been marking up a large pdf for some time and after having saved and closed it the last time, the icon no longer displays the first-page image anymore and won't open in Preview (or Adobe Acrobat Reader), generating the message "It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize."

I copied and pasted text into a note box on the file which I think is being treated as unsupported, even though the text is from the document itself.

The only recovery tool I know of that I've had success with in past is this - https://www.pdf-online.com/osa/repair.aspx - but it has a limit of 32mb and mine is over 40mb. Is there anything else I can do to "repair" it?

Thanks
 
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I'm not sure if your problem relates to known macOS 10.12.x PDF issues, but here is some information that may be relevant:

Are you using macOS Sierra 10.12.x? Apparently Apple re-wrote PDF Framekit, which "broke" several PDF-related capabilities, especially when PDF files are edited with Preview. Did you use Preview to make any edits in your PDF file?

See these links:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...in-progress-preview-app-to-edit-pdfs.2025405/

http://tidbits.com/article/16966


I'm not sure either, but I have a feeling those are relevant somehow. I've lost a lot of work. That's really disappointing. At least I know to stop using Preview to edit files. Thanks.

If you or anyone else happen to alight upon some means of 'repairing' a 'damaged' PDF, I'd be glad to know of it. StellarPhoenix doesn't work for me nor the link I listed above, and I don't know of another option.
 
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