How to "repair" a PDF that opens in Acrobat Reader but not Preview I have a PDF that won't open in Preview; it gives this error message:



However, it will open in Acrobat Reader, but cannot be resaved, or saved with a new file name from Reader:



As I can see all the pages (or most of them at least!) from this PDF, there must be some way to get them into a file that Preview can open. I can do this by copying pages from Reader one-at-a-time, but the PDF has 500 pages.

What is the easiest and cheapest way to export all these pages, and create a new PDF, from Acrobat Reader?

EDIT: I'd rather not have to sign up for online Adobe services...
I just had exactly the same problem. A filled-in PDF form from our tax service displays as follows in almost all PDF readers except Adobe's:



Not one of the normal solutions works. Every single macOS-native save-to-pdf or print-to-pdf option from within Acrobat Reader fails with "Saving a PDF file when printing is not supported."

I ended up having to use PDF-XChange Editor in one of my VMWare Windows guest images to open the offending PDF 1.7 form and then to print to the "Microsoft Print to PDF" printer driver.

A similar driver for macOS which could trick Adobe Reader into thinking that it was just a printer could also work, but I did not have more time to investigate other options.

There's NO reason for Adobe to make it this difficult to export a PDF form to read-only rendered version. Well, it could be because Reader has a truly subpar UI on macOS, so the company has to make use of alternative techniques to retain users.