Learn about the simple measures you may take to keep your PDF files healthy and PDF document recovery options should your files get damaged.
Creating PDF versions of your documents comes with lots of benefits. For starters, you get to protect the files from unwanted edits. It also allows you to share the documents with ease. Unfortunately, PDF files are not immune to corruption. This article discusses simple ways you can use to keep your PDF files healthy.
Why do PDF Files Get Damaged?
One of the reasons why PDF files get corrupted is improper downloading. This can happen when you have a poor internet connection or sudden power outage occurs when downloading your files. If this happens, you will need to download the files afresh when your internet connection is steady. Also, ensure that your firewall settings allow you to download the files.
Virus attacks can render your documents inaccessible. To prevent this from happening, install an antivirus on your computer and keep the software up to date. If the files are in a removable drive, avoid using the device on computers with viruses.
Another tip is to avoid using the same file to make copies of your PDF document. Such practices increase the chances of corrupting your original file. Instead, consider creating a new PDF file every time you need a copy.
PDF files can get corruption during transmission. For instance, when sharing PDF documents over email, there is a chance that they may get corrupted. To prevent this from happening, it is advisable to share your files in zip format. This comes with multiple benefits. For example, Zip files are smaller and easy to send over emails, therefore minimizing risks of data corruption. Moreover, this method allows you to encrypt your documents with ease as opposed to encrypting each file separately.
During file transfer, it is advisable to make sure that the connection between the source and destination storage media is stable. Any interruption during the transfer process can corrupt your files. Therefore, always make sure that the transfer process is completed before dismounting your drives.
It is also important to update your Adobe Acrobat reader frequently. This ensures that any files you create using this software conform to the latest security standards. Otherwise, malicious applications can exploit code execution vulnerabilities to compromise the integrity of your files.
Sometimes, computer systems crash unexpectedly and can cause PDF file corruption, especially if you were working on the document. It is therefore wise to turn your data backup settings on so that your documents are saved automatically. You can also opt to back up your files manually on an external drive or cloud-based servers. Backups make your data recovery easy especially if such files are kept safe.
If for any reason your files get corrupted, do not panic. You can still recover your information. Tools such as DataNumen PDF Repair allow you to recover your documents with ease. When choosing a PDF recovery software, get one that has a high success rate, and is easy to use. This will increase the chances of recovering most of your information.
Final Thoughts
Although PDF file format offers a great way to protect documents from being edited, it doesn’t offer protection against data corruption. Therefore, users need to observe best practices such as updating PDF readers and antivirus software and creating file backups to keep their documents secure. It is advisable to use secure and highly efficient data recovery tools to salvage their documents in case the above precautionary measures fail.
Wonderful tips!