Detect corrupt PDFs

[Iain Robinson]

Hi

We have started hitting a problem with PDFs supplied to us and would like to use PitStop’s preflight feature to identify the files with problems before they get into our system. Currently we preflight them using PitStop Server (v23) and if they pass they go to be printed on one of several digital presses. We have a small but increasing minority of files which error on the press and inspecting the PDF in Acrobat we find that we get to a random page and get an "Insufficient data for an image" error. I can’t find any way to identify such files using Acrobat’s Preflight feature or PitStop's. My local PC is running Acrobat X Pro with PitStop Pro 11 update 2. I know these are old – I’m getting a new PC shortly which will have the latest Acrobat and PitStop on it.

Does anyone know of a way I can use PitStop to identify such files when preflighting them? Ultimately we want the server version to do this but I will be testing it on my desktop version.

Many thanks,
Iain

[JimmyHartington]

Are you able to supply a test-file?

And do you have Enfocus Switch or just Pitstop Server?

[Iain Robinson]

Thanks for your reply Jimmy. Link below (I couldn't get it smaller than the maximum attachment size);
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3uk2p6zz ... v9rxq&dl=0

We do have Switch but it is not used in this particular part of the workflow so ideally any solution would be in Pitstop Server. But if the only way involves Switch I'd like to know about it, but that's not really my area.

[loicaigon]

Hi there,

Could you contact me? I believe we can help with the upcoming July release. I would love to check with you.

Loic
loica (a) enfocus (d) com

[JimmyHartington]

In my tests on macOS, where I have installed the command line tool Ghostscript, I get an error when running this command on the file:

Code: Select all

gs -o /dev/null -sDEVICE=nullpage sample.pdf

Here is the error:

Code: Select all

Processing pages 1 through 2.
Page 1
Page 2

The following warnings were encountered at least once while processing this file:
	recoverable image error

   **** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored.
   **** The file was produced by:
   **** >>>> Switch 22.01 <<<<
   **** Please notify the author of the software that produced this
   **** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF
   **** specification.

So in Switch it is possible to run this on each file. Catch the output and route files accordingly.

As a side note I checked another file I have recieved and printed for a customer correctly. An export from InDesign.
This also gives an error. But another one:

Code: Select all

The following warnings were encountered at least once while processing this file:
	A TrueType font contains invalid or no cmap table(s)

I can see Loïc has answered and of course this could be perfect if Pitstop could catch this error.

[JimmyHartington]

I have made a sample flow for Switch, which sort your sample file in one direction and files without the "recoverable image error" another direction.

You can show this to your Switch administrator.

The sample flow uses the Run Command app and is running on a Windows server. If your enviroment is macOS, then the command in Run Command should be adjusted accordingly.

Forum Detect corrupt PDFs.sflow.zip

(7.03 KiB) Downloaded 30 times

Royal TSX-Flow-server03-2025-06-12 at 11.32.49@2x.png (45.61 KiB) Viewed 525 times

[Iain Robinson]

Thanks Jimmy - that is interesting. I have contacted Loic so hopefully this check can be integrated into PitStop but if not we will have a look at adding it in Switch as you described.

Many thanks,
Iain