1 Annotation has a scale factor of zero and was ignored

1.1 Classification

Validator	Validator version	Error message type
ghostscript		exact

MIME type	Version	Profile
application/pdf	1.3

1.2 Analyses

1.2.1 Analysis

There have been cases where tools like PyMuPDF do not find any annotations in the file, but Ghostscript still prints this warning. In other cases the files have actual annotations, which are broken. Further analysis is needed.

Is it a bug in the validating software? - no

1.3 Possible solutions

1.3.1 Remove annotations with Ghostscript

1.3.1.1 Suggestion

Remove the annotations using Ghostscript.

1.3.1.2 Effects

All annotations are removed. Ghostscript will convert the file from PDF to PostScript and back to PDF again. The file may lose other features in the process.

1.3.1.3 Justification

The file will now be valid, however, you lose all annotations.

1.3.1.4 Execution example

gs -o <fixed file>.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dPreserveAnnots=false <broken_file>.pdf

1.4 Output example

1.5 Notes on the error

1.6 Related errors by source files

ghostscript:    Annotation has a scale factor of zero and was ignored
ghostscript:    Quartz PDFContext
ghostscript:    The file was produced by: macOS Versio 10.14.6 (Build 18G1012) Quartz PDFContext <<<<