How to rotate PDF pages and save the change

How to rotate PDF pages in PDFZyro

1. 1Open Organize pages on the Home page and choose the PDF from your documents, or upload it. If the document is already open, click Organize pages.
2. 2Select the pages to turn. Click a page to select it, Shift-click another to select every page in between, or Ctrl-click (⌘-click on a Mac) to add single pages. Press Ctrl+A (⌘A on a Mac) to select every page.
3. 3On a phone or tablet, tap the box in the corner of each page you want to add to the selection.
4. 4Click Rotate right to turn the selected pages 90 degrees clockwise, or Rotate left to turn them 90 degrees anticlockwise. The keyboard shortcuts are R and Shift+R.
5. 5For an upside-down page, rotate it twice. Each thumbnail shows its new orientation and how many degrees it has turned, so you can check before saving.
6. 6Click Save. The rotated document is saved as a new version, and the earlier version stays in the document's history.

Rotating the view is not the same as rotating the page

Many PDF readers, including the viewer built into Chrome and the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, have a rotate button. It turns the page on your screen, which is fine for a quick look, but the file itself doesn't change: close it and open it again, or send it to someone, and the page is sideways once more.

To fix a PDF for good, the rotation has to be saved in the file. Every PDF page has an orientation setting, in steps of 90 degrees, that tells readers and printers which way up to show it. Rotating pages in Organize pages changes that setting and saves a new version of the document, so the page opens the right way up everywhere.

Does rotating change the quality?

No. Because rotating changes only the page's orientation setting, the content of the page isn't redrawn, compressed or turned into a picture. Text stays sharp and can still be selected, searched and copied, and the file size barely changes.

It doesn't matter how many times you turn a page before saving, either: only the final orientation is saved, and you can always go back to the earlier version from the document's history.

Straightening sideways scans

Scanners and phone scanning apps often save some pages sideways, especially when a stack mixes portrait letters with landscape tables. You can turn those pages by hand in Organize pages, as above.

If the scan also needs its text recognized, so you can search and copy it, Make searchable (OCR) can do both at once: leave Turn sideways pages upright ticked, and pages whose text runs sideways are turned the right way while the text is read. Making a scan searchable counts as one of the Free plan's daily tasks; rotating pages in Organize pages doesn't.

Other ways to rotate PDF pages

• Preview on a Mac: show the thumbnails (View, then Thumbnails), select the pages, and choose Tools, then Rotate Left or Rotate Right. Then choose File, then Save, or File, then Export as PDF to keep the original as it is.
• Adobe Acrobat: the paid version's Organize Pages tool rotates pages and saves the change. In the free Acrobat Reader, Rotate View only turns the page on your screen.
• Chrome's built-in PDF viewer: its rotate button turns the view only, and the file you download keeps its original orientation.
• Word or another word processor: if you still have the original document, change the page orientation there and save it as a PDF again.

Tips for rotating PDF pages

• Rotate first, then add page numbers, Bates numbers or a watermark, so they sit along the edge where readers expect them.
• Landscape pages don't need to become portrait. A PDF can mix portrait and landscape pages; only turn the pages that read sideways.
• Rotate before you sign or send a document for signature. Changing a signed PDF means its digital signature no longer covers the new version.
• A password-protected PDF can't be organized until its password is removed. If you know the password, use Remove password first.
• Undo and Redo work until you save, and Discard throws away every change you haven't saved.