As the world quickly evolves into a global village, more digital documents are created every day, slowly pushing physical paper documents into extinction. One of the most widely used digital document formats is Portable Document File (PDF). In this article we will focus on factors that lead to corruption of pdf files.
The universal role of computers is to manage data. This data is either saved in files on the computer’s hard disk or on external sources, such as the internet or external drives. The saddening thing is that no single file format is completely free from loss or corruption. With that in mind, let us dive into some of the reasons why your PDF files could be at risk of loss or corruption.
Errors during download
When downloading a PDF file, there are some errors that could occur, corrupting the document. One of these errors is an unstable internet connection. It could also be due to interruption of the download by another download running simultaneously. Always ensure you have a stable connection before downloading any file to minimize these risks.
Using incompatible software
If you use an incompatible piece of software to try and open or create a PDF file, the file might be modified, and thereby corrupting it. It is therefore important to use the right software, such as Adobe PDF reader, to open PDF files.
Encoding by some email service providers
Some email service providers sometimes encode huge files, including PDF files. This is to facilitate faster transfer. The problem here is that they are not decoded on the receiving end and will therefore appear corrupt. To avoid this, it is advisable to send large PDFs as compressed .zip files.
Hard disk problems
Hard disk crashes are the most common here. After a minor crash, some bits of data are lost. If the data lost was part of the PDF, it will be corrupt and will not open. The hard disk can as well lose the file entirely. Hard disk failures can be caused by many reasons, the most prominent being:
- Unstable power supply
- Missing or fading sectors
- System errors
Before creating or receiving a PDF file, ensure that your disk is not faulty.
Attacks by viruses
Viruses and other malware attack a file in a computer and either corrupt it by modifying or overwriting it. If your PDF is one of the affected files then it will be corrupt. You should at all times have an up-to-date antivirus software, especially if you frequent the internet or use external drives.
Opening the same file with different software
This is not as common, but it has been established by experts to be one of the reasons your PDF file could be corrupt. Each software you open a PDF file with makes some extremely minor modifications so that the file will adjust to the software’s user interface. If you keep opening the same file with varying software, it will eventually be significantly modified, thereby corrupting it. There are many more reasons that could lead to corruption or loss of PDFs. The good news is that even after the corruption or loss, you can still recover the file with DataNumen PDF Repair.