How to recover lost annotations

The following might help.

1. Do not reinstall the app, this might lose your ability to recover your file.
2. Open your file explorer > within the address bar, edit and paste the following > press enter:
   
   C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Drawboard.DrawboardPDF_gqbn7fs4pywxm\LocalState\v2\Scratch
   
   
   
   Replace the USERNAME with the appropriate username and press enter.
   
   • To find your username:
     1. Open File Explorer (Win Key + E)
     2. Clear the field and paste "C:\Users" + Press Enter
     3. Copy the relevant folder username (it usually is your name, eg. "johndoe", not "Public")
3. Look through the scratch documents there(double click into the folders and corresponding PDFs), they are the temporary saves the app has made and some of them could have part/all of the annotations you've made.

If you weren't able to recover/find your file

If you aren't able to find your file there, try the next step if repairing the file helps or at least prevents future corruption.

How to repair a corrupt PDF

If you are having trouble opening a document in Drawboard PDF there may be some corruption/instability in the file.

If you would like to try to resolve the issue yourself, you can repair your corrupt PDF's by using a free online tool such as this one.

Note: These are suggestions and we are not liable for any potential results done by 3rd party tools.

How to repair a password locked PDF

There is no solution for this issue so far other than to replace it again with the original document.

Some users have reported success with 're-printing' the file again to restore stability. Exact steps can be found here: https://www.isumsoft.com/pdf/how-to-remove-bypass-pdf-permissions-password.html

Note: Do remember to use 'Save as PDF' and not 'Microsoft Print to PDF' as the results are very different.

Why does this even happen?

Due to the fragmented nature of PDFs and PDF creation, if the document started out with an error/corruption and was later annotated in Drawboard PDF, it might still fail later on.

Actions that could contribute to corruption in a PDF are:

• Using PDF apps that might not implement the PDF specification properly.
• Making changes to a PDF while hopping between multiple apps before saving it properly.
• Starting out with a document with a slight corruption, which might not show symptoms at first, but will fail after a certain threshold.

Actions that reduce the likelihood of corruption or the ability to recover PDFs are:

• Flattening your documents you're confident of your changes.
• Saving your documents properly and closing programs, before opening the same file in another app.
• Saving your PDFs on your desktop to a cloud service which saves historical versions(eg. Google Drive for desktops).

We're doing our best we can to resolve document corruption but this is something that is an issue with multiple factors, mostly beyond our control. We look forward to the likelihood of these issues reducing over time with better with best practices and improvements to the format.