How to rotate a PDF permanently
Your PDF reader can turn a sideways page, but the next person still sees it sideways. How to fix the rotation in the file itself, without losing quality.
You scan a document, one page comes out sideways and you turn it in your PDF reader. It looks right. You send it and the recipient sees it sideways, because the rotation only changed what your screen showed, not the file.
Rotating the view versus rotating the file
Most PDF readers have a rotate button and many of them, including the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, use it to rotate the view. That is useful for reading, but it isn’t saved. To fix a document for everyone who opens it, the rotation has to be written into the file.
A PDF page carries its rotation as a setting: 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Changing it is all that is needed, which is why a properly rotated PDF has no loss of quality at all. Nothing on the page is redrawn.
Fixing it
Rotate PDF shows every page. Rotate them all at once or select the sideways ones and rotate just those, then download the corrected file. It keeps the document’s text selectable and its size unchanged.
If the pages are upright but in the wrong order, as happens with double-sided scans fed through a single-sided scanner, reorder PDF pages lets you drag them into place.
Why scans come out sideways
Scanners and scanning apps guess orientation from the page and landscape tables, charts and forms fool them. Some apps store the scan with a rotation setting that other programs then ignore. Rotating in the file settles it for every program.
Photos are different
A sideways photo is a separate problem. Cameras record which way up the phone was held in a tag and some programs ignore it, so a photo that looks right on your phone appears sideways elsewhere. The image rotator rewrites the pixels so the photo is upright in every program.
Next steps
With the pages upright, you may want only part of the document, covered in how to extract pages from a PDF or to add it to others, covered in how to combine PDF files.
Common questions
Why does the rotation not stick when I rotate in my PDF reader?
Many readers, including the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, rotate the view only. The file is unchanged, so it opens sideways again next time and for everyone you send it to.
Does rotating a PDF reduce its quality?
No. Each PDF page stores its rotation as a number and rotating changes that number. The content of the page isn’t redrawn, so text and images are exactly as before.
Can I rotate just one page?
Yes. Choose the pages that are sideways and rotate only those. Scans often have a single landscape page in an otherwise portrait document.
What about a photo that is sideways?
Photos use a separate orientation tag that some programs ignore. The image rotator turns the pixels themselves, so the photo is upright everywhere.