diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 5484137e..083ed314 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 2010-09-05  Jay Berkenbilt  <ejb@ql.org>
 
+	* libqpdf/QPDF.cc (readObjectInternal): Recognize empty objects
+	and treat them as null.
+
 	* libqpdf/QPDF_Stream.cc (filterable): Handle inline image filter
 	abbreviations as stream filter abbreviations.  Although this is
 	not technically allowed by the PDF specification, table H.1 in the
diff --git a/libqpdf/QPDF.cc b/libqpdf/QPDF.cc
index 0ee097d5..2d8f55a1 100644
--- a/libqpdf/QPDF.cc
+++ b/libqpdf/QPDF.cc
@@ -1197,6 +1197,20 @@ QPDF::readObjectInternal(InputSource* input,
 		    olist.pop_back();
 		    olist.pop_back();
 		}
+		else if ((value == "endobj") &&
+			 (! (in_array || in_dictionary)))
+		{
+		    // Nothing in the PDF spec appears to allow empty
+		    // objects, but they have been encountered in
+		    // actual PDF files and Adobe Reader appears to
+		    // ignore them.
+		    warn(QPDFExc(qpdf_e_damaged_pdf, input->getName(),
+				 this->last_object_description,
+				 input->getLastOffset(),
+				 "empty object treated as null"));
+		    object = QPDFObjectHandle::newNull();
+		    input->seek(input->getLastOffset(), SEEK_SET);
+		}
 		else
 		{
 		    throw QPDFExc(qpdf_e_damaged_pdf, input->getName(),
diff --git a/qpdf/qtest/qpdf.test b/qpdf/qtest/qpdf.test
index c6040bf8..fd787364 100644
--- a/qpdf/qtest/qpdf.test
+++ b/qpdf/qtest/qpdf.test
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ $td->runtest("new stream",
 show_ntests();
 # ----------
 $td->notify("--- Miscellaneous Tests ---");
-$n_tests += 25;
+$n_tests += 26;
 
 $td->runtest("qpdf version",
 	     {$td->COMMAND => "qpdf --version"},
@@ -239,6 +239,12 @@ $td->runtest("check output",
 	     {$td->FILE => "a.pdf"},
 	     {$td->FILE => "filter-abbreviation.out"});
 
+$td->runtest("empty object",
+	     {$td->COMMAND => "qpdf -show-object=7,0 empty-object.pdf"},
+	     {$td->FILE => "empty-object.out",
+	      $td->EXIT_STATUS => 3},
+	     $td->NORMALIZE_NEWLINES);
+
 show_ntests();
 # ----------
 $td->notify("--- Error Condition Tests ---");
diff --git a/qpdf/qtest/qpdf/empty-object.out b/qpdf/qtest/qpdf/empty-object.out
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..78274f8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qpdf/qtest/qpdf/empty-object.out
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+WARNING: empty-object.pdf (object 7 0, file position 575): empty object treated as null
+null
+qpdf: operation succeeded with warnings; resulting file may have some problems
diff --git a/qpdf/qtest/qpdf/empty-object.pdf b/qpdf/qtest/qpdf/empty-object.pdf
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..55eef2ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qpdf/qtest/qpdf/empty-object.pdf
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+%PDF-1.3
+1 0 obj
+<<
+  /Type /Catalog
+  /Pages 2 0 R
+  /X 7 0 R
+>>
+endobj
+
+2 0 obj
+<<
+  /Type /Pages
+  /Kids [
+    3 0 R
+  ]
+  /Count 1
+>>
+endobj
+
+3 0 obj
+<<
+  /Type /Page
+  /Parent 2 0 R
+  /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
+  /Contents 4 0 R
+  /Resources <<
+    /ProcSet 5 0 R
+    /Font <<
+      /F1 6 0 R
+    >>
+  >>
+>>
+endobj
+
+4 0 obj
+<<
+  /Length 44
+>>
+stream
+BT
+  /F1 24 Tf
+  72 720 Td
+  (Potato) Tj
+ET
+endstream
+endobj
+
+5 0 obj
+[
+  /PDF
+  /Text
+]
+endobj
+
+6 0 obj
+<<
+  /Type /Font
+  /Subtype /Type1
+  /Name /F1
+  /BaseFont /Helvetica
+  /Encoding /WinAnsiEncoding
+>>
+endobj
+
+7 0 obj
+endobj
+
+xref
+0 8
+0000000000 65535 f 
+0000000009 00000 n 
+0000000074 00000 n 
+0000000146 00000 n 
+0000000318 00000 n 
+0000000414 00000 n 
+0000000449 00000 n 
+0000000567 00000 n 
+trailer <<
+  /Size 8
+  /Root 1 0 R
+>>
+startxref
+583
+%%EOF