diff --git a/poppler/PDFDoc.cc b/poppler/PDFDoc.cc
index 13e3b02..09c5b6e 100644
--- a/poppler/PDFDoc.cc
+++ b/poppler/PDFDoc.cc
@@ -401,11 +401,17 @@ void PDFDoc::checkHeader() {
   char *p;
   char *tokptr;
   int i;
+  int c;
 
   pdfMajorVersion = 0;
   pdfMinorVersion = 0;
   for (i = 0; i < headerSearchSize; ++i) {
-    hdrBuf[i] = str->getChar();
+    if ((c = str->getChar()) == EOF)
+    {
+      error(errSyntaxWarning, -1, "EOF while reading header (continuing anyway)");
+      return;
+    }
+    hdrBuf[i] = c;
   }
   hdrBuf[headerSearchSize] = '\0';
   for (i = 0; i < headerSearchSize - 5; ++i) {