How to Rotate PDF Pages

Few things are more frustrating than receiving a PDF with sideways or upside-down pages. This happens constantly with scanned documents, faxes, phone camera captures, and files from different software. The fix takes seconds — if you have the right tool.

Fix PDF Orientation with PDFably

PDFably's Rotate PDF tool corrects page orientation instantly. Choose your rotation angle, click one button, and download the fixed file. Everything happens in your browser — no upload, no server, no waiting.

1. Open the Rotate PDF tool
2. Upload your sideways PDF
3. Select the rotation angle: 90° clockwise, 180°, or 270° clockwise
4. Click Rotate and download the corrected file

Why Do PDFs End Up Sideways?

Scanner orientation: Automatic document feeders often scan pages in the wrong orientation, especially when mixing portrait and landscape pages in the same batch. This is the most common cause of sideways PDFs in office environments.

Phone camera scanning: When you photograph a document with your phone, the orientation depends on how you held the device. Many scanning apps don't auto-correct this, resulting in rotated pages.

Software exports: Some applications export pages in landscape orientation by default, even when the content is designed for portrait viewing. Spreadsheets, wide charts, and architectural drawings often end up with unexpected orientations.

Mixed documents: When someone merges multiple PDFs, pages from different sources may have different orientations, creating a document that flips between portrait and landscape unpredictably.

How Rotation Works Technically

PDF rotation doesn't actually move or re-render any content. Instead, it changes a metadata value in the page's dictionary that tells PDF readers how to display the page. This is why rotation is instant and lossless — your text, images, and formatting remain completely untouched. The file size barely changes because only a single number in the page structure is modified.

After Rotating

Once your pages are correctly oriented, you might need additional processing:

• Merge PDF — combine the corrected document with other files
• Compress PDF — reduce file size if the document is large
• Remove Pages — delete any blank or unnecessary pages that were included in the scan
• Split PDF — extract specific pages from the corrected document

All of these tools work together seamlessly and process everything on your device — no need to upload your documents to any server at any point in the workflow.