Hello,
I'm having issues pulling up some of my files with adobe reader 8. The error message reads "cannot open file because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged"
There are multiple files like this, all of which are confidential patient records that are imperative to my practice. How can I open/recover these?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
One common source of "broken" PDF is that the PDF is created by non-Adobe processes.
Rather than license the use of Adobe's PDF Library, or methods are used.
Unfortunately, many of these cut corners, so to speak, and a malformed PDF is the result.
While there are rather good third-party PDF related applications those that don't "cut corners" reflect this in the license cost.
Adobe's past releases of Adobe Reader/Acrobat were more forgiving of malformed PDF from third-party sources.
This is far less the case now.
Between security issues (the "bad guys" never rest, eh) and (I suspect) having become tired of being the target of user ire
when a malformed PDF (from a non-Adobe process) mis-behaves in Reader/Acrobat this makes sense.
With that said, another source of "bad" PDF would be a PDF that udergoes indescriminate reprocessing with Acrobat.
Acrobat 8 Pro Preflights provide a number of custom checks and fixups that may be run (but no explicite "repair").
The custom checks can narrow the field of what may be wrong.
Acrobat 9 Pro has a "repair" fixup.
Preflight > Fixups > Repair damaged document
Be well...