My scanned contract opens fine on my laptop, but I get a PDF error whenever I upload it to the portal. Has anyone dealt with this with a 20-page scan?
had the same thing last month. my 20 page scan opened fine on the laptop but the portal kept giving a pdf error. tbh i reprinted it using print to pdf from the regular print menu and it uploaded after that. fwiw scanner pdfs are often huge so that might be the issue. worked for me.
I usually open the scan in Acrobat and use “Save as Optimized PDF,” with standard compatibility and reduced image resolution, then upload the new copy. Keep the original untouched. Since it’s a contract, avoid online converters unless your company approves them; also check the portal’s file-size limit.
A scan can open locally even if the portal rejects its PDF structure, especially if it was made by a phone scanner. I’d try opening it in Adobe Acrobat or Preview and using “Save As” or “Print to PDF” to create a fresh copy, then upload that. If it still fails, check the portal’s file-size limit and whether it accepts password-protected or PDF/A files.
Yeah we see this at the help desk all the time, it’s usualy the file size. A 20 page scan at high DPI can easily blow past a portal’s upload limit. Try this:
- Open it and Print to PDF, that rewrites the file and strips weird scanner encoding.
- If it’s still too big, compress it with smallpdf or ilovepdf.
That’s fixed it for me every time.
I’ve had this with supplier paperwork that looked fine locally but had a bad scan or odd PDF structure. I would try opening it and using Print to PDF to make a fresh copy, then upload that; if it still fails, split the 20 pages into smaller PDFs to find the problem page.
Had this exact thing with claim scans, usually it’s a dodgy embedded colour profile or the scanner bunging in weird metadata that your laptop ignores but the portal doesn’t.
- Print the PDF to “Microsoft Print to PDF” (Windows) to create a clean rebuilt copy.
- Keep your original scan untouched somewhere safe before you mess about with it.
- Avoid re-scanning at a different DPI as a fix first, it wastes time and rarely helps.
Portal upload errors with scanned forms are incredibly annoying. It’s usually because the file size is too big, which happens a lot with my field reports. I always run them through PDFcap to fix this. Just drop your file on there, hit the compress option, and save the new PDF to upload.
@amy_celtic That metadata point matches what I’ve seen with bank and tax scans. Print to PDF fixes most of them, and backing up the original first is the right habit.
If it still errors, try splitting the 20 pages in half to find the bad page. What device and OS are you on?
@ClumsyRed totally agree, portal errors with scans are so annoying. honestly print to pdf usually sorts it out when our clinic scanner creates a messy file. not sure if it’s the same on mac, but opening it in chrome or edge and printing a new copy strips out whatever the portal hates.
@ClumsyRed That matches what I see with vendor contracts. Print to PDF rebuilds the whole file, which strips out the scanner encoding the portal chokes on, and a 20-page scan at high resolution is often over the upload limit anyway. I also keep the original untouched as my working copy. Did the printed copy still look sharp, or did it soften any fine print?