How-to guide

How to fix rotation on scanned PDF pages

Scanned documents frequently include a page or two that came out sideways or upside down, usually from how the paper was fed into the scanner or how a phone was held while photographing a page.

Why scans end up rotated

Sheet-fed scanners can flip orientation depending on which way a page was loaded, and phone scanning apps sometimes misjudge orientation on pages with little text near the top to anchor against.

Fixing it

  1. Open the Rotate PDF tool.
  2. Drop in the scanned file — every page shows as a thumbnail.
  3. Click each sideways or upside-down page to rotate it 90 degrees at a time until upright.
  4. Download the corrected file.

Combining with other fixes

If the scan also needs to be combined with other files or shrunk in size, rotating first means you're working with correctly oriented thumbnails when you move on to merging or compressing.

Ready to try it yourself?

Fix your scanned pages →

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to rotate every page, or just the ones that are wrong?+

Just the pages that need it — rotation is applied per page.

Will rotating affect the scan quality?+

No, rotation doesn't recompress or otherwise alter the page's image data.