pdf tool
Rotate PDF
Every page sits on its own turntable. Tap one and it spins where it stands, so the grid is a preview of the file you are about to save. Pages lying on their side are spotted and straightened before you touch anything.
Runs on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
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How to use it
- 1
Drop the PDF
Every page appears on its own square stage, and any lying on their side are already turned upright for you.
- 2
Turn what needs turning
Tap a page to turn it clockwise, or use the two arrow buttons under it. The angle under each page is the one that will be saved.
- 3
Or turn the whole document
The bar above the grid turns every page left, right or upside down at once, and puts them all back.
- 4
Save
The button counts the pages you changed, and the turn is written into the file rather than into the view.
The grid is the preview
The usual complaint about rotate tools is that you cannot tell what you did until the file is downloaded and opened. Here each page sits on a square stage and turns in place, with a small transition so you see which way it went, and the angle written underneath is the angle that will be stored. Nothing is applied to the file until you press save, so tapping four times to get back where you started costs nothing.
Sideways scans are found for you
When a mostly portrait document contains a handful of landscape pages, those pages are almost always sheets that went into the scanner the wrong way round. They are turned upright as soon as the file opens and a banner says which ones and why, with a button to put them back if the guess was wrong. No mainstream rotate tool does this; the closest is a filter that acts on whole files rather than pages.
Rotation is a property, not a redraw
A PDF page carries a rotation entry, a whole number of quarter turns clockwise, and readers apply it when they draw the page. Turning a page here changes that number rather than redrawing anything, so nothing is resampled and nothing loses quality. It also means the angle can only be a multiple of ninety. A scan that is three degrees off cannot be fixed this way, and a page that looks sideways with a rotation of zero is a landscape sheet rather than a rotated one.
The turn is saved, not just shown
Every PDF reader has a rotate button that turns the view for as long as the window is open and forgets it the moment you close the file. That is the single most common confusion in this category, and it is why people search for a rotate tool at all. What happens here is the other kind: the rotation is written into the page, so the document opens the right way round for whoever you send it to.
Limits
- Rotation is recorded as a page property, which is how PDF works; the content itself is not redrawn.
- Turns go in quarters only, because the format allows nothing else.
- A page that is landscape by design is turned as readily as a sideways scan, so check the picture before saving.
- Digital signatures on the source do not survive the rewrite.
What it does not do
- It does not straighten a slightly skewed scan; it turns by exact quarters.
- It does not crop or resize.
- It does not open password protected files.
Questions people ask
Why is my page still sideways after rotating it in a reader?
Because the reader turned the view rather than the file. Almost every reader has a rotate button that lasts as long as the window is open and is forgotten when you close it. This tool writes the rotation into the page itself, so the document opens the right way round for anyone you send it to, on any reader.
Does rotating lose any quality?
No. A PDF page carries a rotation entry that readers apply when they draw it, so turning a page changes one number rather than redrawing the content. Nothing is resampled, nothing is recompressed, and the text stays selectable. It is also why the turn can only be a quarter, a half or three quarters of a circle.
How does it know which pages are sideways?
It compares each page shape against the rest of the document. A handful of landscape pages in a mostly portrait file are nearly always sheets fed in the wrong way round, so those are turned upright as the file opens and named in a banner. If most of the document is landscape, no guess is made, because there is nothing unusual to correct.
Can I turn only the odd or even pages?
Yes, in Advanced options. That is the fix for a duplex scanner that feeds one side the right way and the other upside down, which leaves every second page turned. There is also a button for the sideways pages only, and one that sets every page back to zero degrees regardless of what it started at.
Why is one page turned when I did not touch it?
Because it was lying on its side when the file opened and was straightened for you. The banner at the top says which pages and offers to put them back in one tap. Tapping any page also dismisses the banner and leaves you in charge, and the save button always counts exactly how many pages will be turned.
Will it print the right way round?
Yes, because the rotation is part of the page rather than part of your view of it, and printers honour it the same way readers do. Watch out for one case: a page that is genuinely landscape by design does not need turning, and turning it makes the content run off the paper. The note in Advanced options counts those for you.
Can I rotate a signed PDF?
You can turn the pages, but the signature will not validate afterwards. A digital signature covers the exact bytes of the file, and writing a new rotation changes those bytes. That is the signature working as intended. If a document needs both, turn the pages first and sign the corrected file afterwards.
Is my file uploaded?
No. The file is read into memory in this page and the corrected version is written there too. There is no upload, no queue and no server copy, which you can confirm in the network tab: choose a file and watch nothing happen. Closing the tab discards everything.
Rebuild the document properly
Take what you made here into documents.
Create a document with OneCraftRelated tools
- PDF page size checkerDrop a PDF and read a print report: every page size named against ISO 216 and ANSI, trim box against media box, bleed in millimetres, rotation and clearance.
- Split PDFTap the scissors between two pages and watch the output files appear. Cut at bookmarks, every N pages, or a typed range. Runs in your browser.
- Merge PDFStack several PDFs, see the merged document before you build it, then save one file. Bookmarks per file, alternating scans, nothing uploaded.
Built with pdf-lib (MIT).
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .