Sierra produces corrupt pdf files

Question

camichal Author

Level 1

8 points

Sierra produces corrupt pdf files

A colleague just bought a new Mac with 10.12. The pdf files he creates, eg from Safari, all contain invalid pdf.

Running ps2pdf on them says:

**** Warning: considering '0000000000 XXXXX n' as a free entry.

**** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored.

**** The file was produced by:

**** >>>> Mac OS X 10.12 Quartz PDFContext <<<<

**** Please notify the author of the software that produced this

**** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF

**** specification.

These files actually crash the pdf viewer that I usually use (atril), though the errors are silently ignored in acroread.

macOS Sierra (10.12)

Posted on Nov 22, 2016 10:36 PM

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Answer 1

benwiggy

Level 4

1,491 points

Dec 14, 2017 9:40 AM in response to camichal

I can also confirm that PDF generation on Sierra and later is not conforming to spec somehow. Acrobat's Preflight test for PDF syntax reports "Incorrect value type for this key" on all Mac PDFs. Ghostscript generates the error message listed above.
Other PDF generators do not produce the error.

Sierra also garbles metadata when you encrypt PDFs in Preview, though this seems to have been fixed in High Sierra.

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Answer 2

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Nov 23, 2016 1:23 PM in response to camichal

Hi camichal,

If your PDFs are not showing correctly in your PDF app, try opening them up with your Preview app.

Use the Preview app to view and edit images and PDFs

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities to post your question. Let us know if your PDFs work better in the Preview app.

Have a nice day.

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Answer 3

camichal Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:08 PM in response to AppleJoe

Thanks.

I'm not actually using a mac myself. My goal here was to alert Apple to the issue in hopes they might fix their pdf renderer.

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

135,569 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:38 PM in response to camichal

FWIW, I created two PDFs from Safari, one using "Export as PDF" and one using "Save as PDF". Both opened just fine in Windows 10 "Reader". Perhaps Atril is the problem.

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Answer 5

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:42 PM in response to dialabrain

Have to agree with you, however I make PDF files. Preview can invariably open them.

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Answer 6

dialabrain

Level 10

135,569 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:44 PM in response to Csound1

I don't think they have "Preview" in Windows.

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Answer 7

dialabrain

Level 10

135,569 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:47 PM in response to Csound1

nevermind. I just realized Atril is a document viewer for the MATE desktop in Linux. New test. 😁

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Answer 8

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:48 PM in response to dialabrain

Shame, but most have Acrobat Reader, which is free to download if they don't.

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Answer 9

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,460 points

Nov 23, 2016 2:57 PM in response to camichal

Running ps2pdf on them says:

Which is essentially what should happen. A PDF file is not PostScript, so it will of course generate errors trying to "convert" it. The purpose of ps2pdf is to create a PDF file from a PostScript file, not start with a PDF.

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Answer 10

dialabrain

Level 10

135,569 points

Nov 23, 2016 3:07 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Good point. I should pay more attention. And fwiw, Atril opened the PDFs from Safari just fine. At least the one in Ubuntu MATE 16.0.4.1 LTS.

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Answer 11

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,176 points

Nov 23, 2016 3:16 PM in response to camichal

If one has Adobe Acrobat Reader [DC] installed, and has activated the Reader PDF plug-in within Safari, then one must use the Save functionality of the plug-in, not the Safari File menu : Export to PDF — otherwise the PDF will be corrupted and unviewable in Preview and Acrobat Reader.

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Answer 12

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,460 points

Nov 23, 2016 3:19 PM in response to VikingOSX

Yes, very good point! Otherwise Safari is trying to save a PDF of a PDF being displayed in a web browser. Doesn't work so good. 🙂

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Answer 13

dialabrain

Level 10

135,569 points

Nov 23, 2016 3:25 PM in response to Kurt Lang

I always assumed "Export as PDF" was to save a web page as a PDF. Not to export a PDF as a PDF. Silly me. 😁

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Answer 14

camichal Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2016 3:29 PM in response to dialabrain

My goal here really was just to raise the alert that the pdf renderer in OS X 10.12 produces pdf files that do not conform to the pdf specification, and that that causes problems in some viewers. Its true that many (most?) pdf readers ignore those errors silently. It would be better if the renderer produced valid, conforming pdf.

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Answer 15

dialabrain

Level 10

135,569 points

Nov 23, 2016 3:41 PM in response to camichal

As Kurt pointed out, you can't run a utility to convert a postscript file into a pdf file on a pdf file. You also mentioned the pdfs you were sent crashed Atril. They don't crash for me in Atril. So at this point there is no evidence there is any corruption.

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