How to reorder and rotate PDF pages

Reorder PDF pages in five steps

1. Open Rearrange PDF and add the file.
2. Drag pages into the order you want, or use the move up and move down controls on each page. Each page shows “Original page N”, so you always know where it came from.
3. Check the whole sequence once from first page to last.
4. Create the reordered PDF and download it, saved as the original name with -reordered added.
5. Open it and look at the first page, the last page and each section break.

Rules for reordering

Every page must appear exactly once. That is why the tool states that all pages stay intact, and why it refuses with “Choose every page exactly once” if the order is incomplete. To take pages out, use Delete Pages first (the page-removal guide shows how), and to pull pages into separate files use Split PDF.

Reordering copies each page without changing it. Bookmarks are carried over and their targets move with the pages, and form fields are kept, so a reordered packet of fillable forms stays fillable.

Rotate PDF pages in five steps

1. Open Rotate PDF and add the file.
2. Choose the angle (see the table).
3. Choose All pages, or Selected pages and enter numbers and ranges such as 1, 3, 5-8, 10.
4. Check the summary line, which says which pages will turn and by how much, then rotate.
5. Download the corrected PDF and scroll through it to confirm every page is upright.

Which angle do I need?

All angles are clockwise, so a quarter turn to the left is 270°. If you pick the wrong one, rotate again by the missing amount: the turns add together, so 90° followed by 270° brings a page back to where it started.

Rotation is stored, not re-drawn

The tool changes each page’s rotation setting in the file rather than redrawing the page, so text stays sharp and selectable and the file size barely changes. Because the setting is inside the PDF, the pages open the right way up in any viewer, not just the one you checked it in.

Mixed scans

A stack scanned in one go often has a few sideways pages. Rotate only those by listing them, rather than turning everything and undoing the rest. If a page is rotated by a degree or two rather than a quarter turn, this tool cannot straighten it; fix the scan before converting it to PDF.

Do things in a sensible order

1. Remove pages you do not need.
2. Reorder the rest.
3. Rotate any pages that are the wrong way up.
4. Add page numbers last, because numbers are stamped on the pages and will not renumber themselves if you reorder afterwards.

If you are assembling the document from several files, merge them first, as in the merge guide, then reorder and rotate the combined file.

Limits

Both tools run in your browser, so large files depend on available memory: up to 256 MB per file, or 128 MB in browsers that report 4 GB of memory or less. A file protected by a password has to be unlocked first with Unlock PDF.