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Repair PDF Online Free — PrivaTools

TL;DR: Upload a damaged or corrupt PDF and download a repaired copy — qpdf rebuilds the xref tables and structures.

Repair corrupted PDF files online for free. Fix damaged, broken, or unreadable PDFs that won't open in standard PDF readers. Recover content from corrupted documents.

Repair PDF runs on the same privacy-first stack as every PrivaTools utility: files enter an isolated Docker container, are processed in temporary memory, and are unlinked the moment your download begins. No account, no watermark, no daily quota.

How to Repair PDF with PrivaTools

  1. Upload the corrupt PDF — Drop a PDF up to 500 MB that won't open or shows errors in your viewer.
  2. PrivaTools rebuilds the file structure — Uses pikepdf to parse the PDF tolerantly, recover damaged cross-reference tables, and rewrite the file with a clean structure.
  3. Download the repaired PDF — Most viewer-breaking issues (broken xref, missing trailer, corrupted streams) are fixable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kinds of damage can it fix?

Missing or corrupt cross-reference tables, broken trailers, dangling object references, slightly-truncated streams. Cannot recover from missing object data.

Will the repaired PDF look identical?

Yes if the damage was in metadata/structure. Visible content damage (cropped images, missing fonts) requires the original to fix.

Can it merge two damaged PDFs?

Repair each separately first, then use Merge.

Last reviewed 2026-05-01 by the PrivaTools maintainers. Source code on (MIT-licensed, self-hostable).

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