Scanned pages often come out sideways. Rotating them in your PDF viewer only changes the view temporarily — to fix it permanently, you need to rotate and save. Here's how.
Rotate all or specific pages
You can rotate every page (handy when a whole scan is sideways) or just selected pages (when one page came in rotated). Choose the rotation — 90° left, 90° right, or 180° — and save.
Why the rotation must be saved
Viewing-rotation in a reader isn't stored in the file. A rotate tool writes the rotation into the PDF so it displays correctly for everyone who opens it.
Step by step
- Open the rotate tool and add your PDF.
- Rotate everything at once, or turn individual pages that came in sideways.
- Export the rotated file — this writes the orientation into the document rather than just changing your view.
- Reopen the download to confirm the rotation stuck.
What usually goes wrong
Rotating in a viewer does not save anything
Most readers let you spin the view for reading. Close it and the file is unchanged, and the recipient still gets it sideways. The rotation has to be exported.
Landscape pages are not always mistakes
A wide table or chart is often deliberately landscape. Rotating the whole document to fix one sideways scan will turn those the wrong way.
Upside-down is two rotations
A page fed in backwards needs 180°, not 90°. Check the preview rather than rotating twice by reflex.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my PDF look right on my screen but wrong when shared?
You probably rotated the view, not the file. Use a rotate-and-save tool to make it permanent.
Why does my PDF open sideways even after I rotated it?
Because the rotation was only applied to the view in your reader. You need to export a rotated copy for the change to travel with the file.
Can I rotate only some pages?
Yes — rotate individual pages and leave the rest, which is what you want when only the scanned pages came in sideways.