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How to Rotate PDF Pages Permanently
September 20, 20263 min read
Feed a stack of pages into a scanner the wrong way and you get a PDF where some pages are sideways or upside down. Rescanning is a hassle, and it's rarely necessary — the pages can simply be rotated.
Rotating versus viewing
Most PDF viewers let you rotate a page on screen, but that usually only changes how it looks while you have the file open. With the Rotate PDF tool, the new orientation is saved into the downloaded file itself, so it opens correctly for everyone you send it to.
How to rotate a PDF
- Open the Rotate PDF tool and upload your file.
- Select the page or pages to rotate and choose the direction — 90, 180, or 270 degrees.
- Download the corrected PDF.
Rotate only the pages that need it
Pages are rotated independently of one another. If only page three of a twelve-page document came out sideways, rotate just that page and leave the rest as they are. If the pages are also out of sequence, Organize PDF lets you drag them into the right order.
Which direction do I choose?
- Page is on its side, top pointing left: rotate 90 degrees clockwise.
- Page is on its side, top pointing right: rotate 270 degrees clockwise (the same as 90 degrees counter-clockwise).
- Page is upside down: rotate 180 degrees.
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