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Files that cannot be opened with PDFsharp
Version 6.2.0 ยท 2025-05-07
In this article
- Introduction
- Test with the latest PDFsharp version
- Checking if a file is corrupted
- Other checks
- Submitting a file for review
This article describes actions that can be taken if a PDF file cannot be opened with PDFsharp.
PDFsharp 6.2.0 may show a link to this page if a PDF file cannot be opened.
Introduction
Many tools produce PDF files that do not comply with the PDF specification. We call such files corrupted.
We put much effort into PDFsharp to enable reading some types of those corrupted files. If you encounter PDF files that can be opened by Adobe Reader and/or other PDF viewers like Chrome, FireFox, Opera, or SumatraPDF, consider submitting the PDF file for review and maybe we can enhance PDFsharp to also support that file type.
Test with the latest PDFsharp version
Make sure you test the PDF file with the latest PDFsharp version, including prerelease versions.
Checking if a file is corrupted
First step: Open the file with Adobe Reader. If Reader cannot open the file, then it most likely is corrupted.
Second step: If Reader opens the file, then use File / Save as in Adobe Reader to create a copy of the file. Try if PDFsharp can open the copy.
Background information: Adobe Reader does a good job with respect to repairing malformed PDF files. So far, PDFsharp can handle some types of malformed PDF files, but there are inconsistencies that are not yet fixed by PDFsharp.
We have seen files that cannot be opened with Adobe Reader or that look wrong with Adobe Reader, but work fine with FireFox, Chrome and other viewers.
Other checks
Before submitting a corrupted PDF for review, please check the Issues and Discussions on GitHub if that specific issue was already discussed there.
Submitting a file for review
To submit files for review, please use the Issue Submission Template to make the issue reproducible. Create a ZIP file using the PS1 file in the dev folder of the project.
If the PDF is not confidential, then please upload the ZIP file as an attachment to a new post on GitHub Issues or Discussions.
If the PDF file is confidential, then upload the ZIP to our FTP server and notify us on GitHub Discussions about your upload.
Other people cannot download your file even if they guess the filename. But please use a non-trivial filename as other people can overwrite your file if they choose the same name.
The filename issue.zip is a bad choice.
It's better if you include your name and the current date as in tom-2025-05-07.zip or use another individualized name.