Rotate several PDFs at once: fix the whole bundle in one go

The short answer: add them all, turn, save once

You don't have to fix each file one by one. Rotate PDF takes many PDFs at the same time:

1. Press Choose PDF files and pick all of them, or drop them on the page.
2. Each file gets a heading with its name, page count and size, and a card for each page.
3. Click a sideways page's picture to turn it a quarter turn right. Use the arrows on a card for left or right.
4. If a whole file is sideways, use the arrows on that file's heading.
5. Press the yellow button, which says Save 3 turned PDFs when three files have turned pages.
6. Download one PDF on its own, or several in one ZIP file.

Only the files with at least one turned page are saved, so the untouched ones are left out of the result. Everything is done in your browser, and your ID copies are never uploaded. The rest of this post goes through a real bundle, the cards, the file names, and what to do afterwards.

Why a bundle has a few sideways pages

A bundle for a job, college or visa application comes from many places: a scanner, a phone, a bank's download, a college's PDF. Each makes its own choice about which way up a page is. A scanner saves each page the way it went in, so a page fed in sideways stays sideways. Phone photos can lose the note that tells which way the phone was held. Some papers are wide by nature: a landscape marksheet, a certificate with a wide border, an ID card scanned sideways to fit the glass.

The result is a set where most pages are fine and a few are not. That is why one tool that handles several PDFs at once saves time. The post Scanned PDF upside down or sideways? explains why scanners do it, and Rotate specific pages in a PDF goes deeper on turning only some pages of one file.

A worked example: an application bundle

Say you have five PDFs for a college form. This is a made-up example, to show how the cards guide you:

The button then says Save 4 turned PDFs. The upright PAN file stays out of the result, which is fine: you keep using the original.

If you turn a page by mistake, a yellow tag on its picture shows the angle. Four turns the same way put it back, and the tag goes away. Undo all turns puts every page back, if you'd like to start again.

Which way to turn: read the picture

A right turn is clockwise, the way a clock's hands move: the top of the page goes to the right. A left turn is the other way. Judge by where the top of the text points on the card's picture:

One left turn shows 270°, because the tag counts clockwise from how the page was when you added it. You never need to know the page's own setting: your turn is added to it. Turn the page until its picture looks right.

For a long file where everything is sideways, use the arrows on the file's heading. For all files at once, Turn all left and Turn all right, above the cards, turn every page of every file. Then turn back any page that was already upright.

Saving, names and the ZIP file

The yellow button under the cards says Save turned PDF, or Save 3 turned PDFs when three files have turned pages. Until you turn a page, it says Turn a page to save. It stays in view at the bottom of your screen on a long PDF.

• One PDF downloads on its own.
• Several PDFs come in one ZIP file, rotated-pdfs.zip, with a PDF for each, named after its original, like aadhaar-rotated.pdf. If two share a name, the second gets (2) added.
• Your originals are not changed. Keep them until the application is accepted.

A ZIP is one file that holds several others. On Android, tap it in the Files app and choose Extract. On iPhone and iPad, tap it in the Files app. On Windows, right-click it and choose Extract All, and on a Mac double-click it.

If you turn another page after saving, the result goes away and the Save button comes back, so the file you download always matches the cards. Use the new files, whose names end in -rotated. If the new PDF still looks sideways, you have opened the original, or your reader turned its own view earlier.

How long it takes, and what stays the same

Turning changes only a setting on each page; it doesn't draw the page again or compress it. In our own tests, run in headless Chromium at computer size, a 4-page sample with 2 pages turned took under 0.1 seconds. A 42-page colour scan of 47.8 MB, with every back page (21 pages) turned upside down, took 0.5 seconds, and its size stayed 47.8 MB. All 400 pages of a 454.8 MB scan took 9.2 seconds. A phone may be slower.

What stays the same: text stays text and can still be searched, pictures keep every pixel, links and bookmarks still work, forms keep their fields, and page labels stay. Only the turned pages show a new direction. For the full list, see What stays the same in your PDF.

After turning: merge, number, shrink

Turning is the first job, because everything after it works on upright pages. A good order:

1. Turn the sideways pages here and save.
2. Merge the upright copies into one file in the order the form lists them, with Merge PDF. See Combine resume, cover letter and certificates in one PDF.
3. Number the pages, if the form wants it, with Add Page Numbers. It places each number in the corner you see, so turned pages get their numbers upright.
4. Shrink last, if the form has a size limit, with Resize PDF, so the limit is checked on the file you upload.

If the form wants separate uploads, skip the merge: upload the rotated files one by one. Rename each so that the name says what it is.

On a phone, and slips to avoid

It works the same on a phone: open the page in Chrome on Android or Safari on iPhone and iPad, tap Choose PDF files and pick your PDFs from Downloads or the Files app. A few things are different on a small screen:

• Cards sit two or three to a row, so when every page of a file needs the same turn, the arrows on the file's heading save a lot of scrolling.
• The arrows on each card are always shown on a touch screen. With a mouse they appear when you point at a card.
• The pictures appear as you scroll, so a long PDF isn't drawn all at once. Scroll to the pages you need.

Some slips are easy to make when you handle many files:

Turning the wrong file's page.

Each heading has a coloured dot and the file's name. Check the heading above a card before you click.

Forgetting a page that was already upright.

After Turn all right, look at every card. Pages that were already upright are now sideways. Turn those back.

Uploading the original.

The new files end in -rotated. A scan that was turned only in your reader's view is still sideways in the file.

Mixing up two similar files.

Two marksheets can have nearly the same name. The first page on the card tells them apart.

Leaving the unchanged files out of the upload.

Only turned files are saved. The upright ones still need to go in the bundle: use the originals for those.

What turning can't fix, and special files

• A tilted scan. Pages turn by quarter turns only (90°, 180° and 270°). A page tilted by a few degrees is tilted inside the scanned picture. Scan it again, laid straight, or use a scanner app that straightens pages.
• One picture on a page. A page turns with everything on it. One photo or one table within a page can't be turned alone.
• "Locked with a password." The file needs a password to open, so it can't be used. Unlock it with Unlock PDF, then add the unlocked copy.
• A digital signature. A signed PDF can be turned, but the changed copy no longer carries a valid signature, and the result says so. If the signature must stay valid, send the original.
• "These files are too big to handle in this browser's memory." Save fewer files at a time, or use a computer.

Your ID copies stay on your device

An application bundle holds some of your most private papers. Rotate PDF has no upload step and never sends your files anywhere: your own browser opens the PDFs and saves the turned copies. The page contacts only this site and Google's ad service, which shows the ads that keep the tools free, and our code never gives your files to the ad code. The privacy policy has the details.