google patents import fails

atnoir
I'm using the Chrome extension to fetch patents (mostly PDFs) to Zotero. It reads the metadata and the full text PDF but the PDF can't be opened. The error message says:

PDF. j s v2.8.0 (build: fdde957)
Message: lnvalid PDF structure.

Thanks for any help.
  • atnoir
    Is the non-OCRed PDF the cause of this issue? Thanks
  • adamsmith
    edited January 6, 2023
    Non-OCRd PDFs are fine in general. Does the pdf open in another PDF reader? And if it opens e.g. in Acrobat, can you open it in Firefox or on this web based PDF viewer https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/web/viewer.html ?
  • atnoir
    Hi, thanks for the reply. I can't open the file in Adobe. But I can "view online" successfully or visits the pdf link in Chrome's pdf viewer.
  • dstillman
    edited January 7, 2023
    You should still try pdf.js, linked above, but if you can't open the file in Acrobat, from the company that invented the PDF file format, I think it's safe to say it's a problem with the file. You should report this to the site that's distributing the file. (Mention whatever error you get in Acrobat, not Zotero.)
  • atnoir
    Thank you very much. You're right. It turns out to be a network issue that stops PDF downloading by the third-party extensions. I've fixed my network and now it works as expected.
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