The quick answer: drag the page, save one new file
Page 7 should be page 2. You could split the file and merge it again, or you could open Organize PDF, drag the page up and save. Every page appears as a thumbnail in the order it will have, and each caption says where it came from, like Page 2 (was 7).
- Choose the PDF or drop it on the page. All its pages appear as thumbnails.
- Drag the page by its grip to its new place, or press the arrow buttons on it. Moving page 7 to page 2 takes five presses.
- Check the caption on the moved page.
- Press Save PDF, look through the preview of the new file and download it.
The pages are read, arranged and saved inside your browser tab. Your PDF is never uploaded.
Move one page, several pages or a whole run
| The job | How |
|---|---|
| One page, far away | Drag it by its grip |
| One page, a short way | The arrow buttons on the page, or the left and right arrow keys while its grip has focus |
| Pages that belong together | Click one, Shift click a run, or type numbers like 1-3, 5, 8- in Select by number. Then use To start or To end. They keep their order |
| The whole document, last page first | Reverse order |
| A mistake | Undo with Ctrl or Cmd + Z, up to 200 steps, and Shift to redo. Reset goes back to the pages you opened, and can itself be undone |
Do the whole tidy-up in one session
A scanned packet also has a sideways sheet, a blank back and a page that belongs to another file. Organize PDF handles all of them in the same view, so you save once instead of using four tools.
- Turn a page with its buttons, or every selected page with Left and Right.
- Delete with the cross on a page, the Delete button or the Delete key. Undo brings a page back.
- Duplicate puts a copy after each selected page. Copies share the page's content, so they add almost nothing to the file.
- Blank pages go at the start, at the end or after each selected page, as big as the page next to them.
- Add a PDF puts another file's pages at the end or after the last selected page, and selects them so you can move them together.
| You need | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Only to turn pages | Rotate PDF | It edits your file, so bookmarks and form fields stay. See rotating a PDF |
| Only to drop pages | Remove pages from PDF | Mark pages, check the count. See deleting pages |
| To join whole files | Merge PDF | Quicker, with page picking. See combining PDF files |
| New order, plus any of these | Organize PDF | One thumbnail view, undo, one save |
Why scans come out in the wrong order
A scanner adds a page each time a sheet goes through, so anything that changes the order of the sheets changes the order of the pages. A stack put in with the last page on top comes out backwards. A sheet that jams and is scanned again lands at the end. A report scanned in chapters comes out in the order of scanning, not the order it belongs in.
A document scanned back to front
When the whole stack was scanned from the bottom up, press Reverse order and the last page becomes the first. Then look at the first and last thumbnails. If the pages are in order but upside down, use Left and Right on the selection, or Rotate PDF for the whole file. You can combine reversing with other steps, such as pulling a cover page back to the start afterwards.
Weave fronts and backs from a two-sided scan
A scanner that reads one side at a time needs two passes: the fronts, then, after you turn the stack over, the backs. The file holds all the fronts first and the backs after them, usually in reverse, because turning the stack over puts the last sheet on top.
The Front and back scans button opens a panel, and its Merge the scans button weaves the halves together. It takes the first half of the pages, rounded up, as the fronts and the rest as the backs, and builds front 1, back 1, front 2, back 2 and so on. A preview lists up to the first ten places of the new order, and the weave is one step, so Undo reverses it. For 6 sheets, which is 12 pages:
| How the backs were scanned | Choose | New order of the 12 pages |
|---|---|---|
| Last page first, the usual case when you turn the whole stack over | Backs scanned last page first | 1, 12, 2, 11, 3, 10, 4, 9, 5, 8, 6, 7 |
| In the same order, because you restacked the sheets | Backs scanned in the same order | 1, 7, 2, 8, 3, 9, 4, 10, 5, 11, 6, 12 |
The helper assumes there are as many backs as fronts, or one fewer. If the scanner skipped blank backs, add a blank page among the backs where each belongs, then weave. If the backs also came out upside down, rotating odd or even pages fixes them in one go.
Check the result before you send it
When you press Save PDF, the new file is opened again and every page is checked for its size and rotation before you can download it. The preview shows all the pages in order, with the size before and after. If something looks wrong, Keep editing returns to the pages with every step still there.
Then look at the first page, a middle page and the last yourself, and compare the number printed on the paper with each page's position. Add numbers last, as adding page numbers to a PDF explains, and if the file is a draft, stamp it once the order is final with watermark a PDF.
What the new file keeps and what it leaves behind
The new file is built by copying the pages you arranged into a fresh PDF. They are not redrawn or compressed again, so text stays text you can select and search, pictures keep their quality, and the file is about as big as the original.
| Kept | Not kept |
|---|---|
| Text, fonts, images and drawings | Bookmarks |
| Links to websites | Links that jump to another page of the same file |
| Highlights, comments and stamps | Form fields (the look of what was typed stays, but many viewers will not let you edit it) |
| Layers, with a hidden layer still hidden | Accessibility tags, document language and page labels such as roman numerals |
| Title, author, subject and keywords | Extra metadata |
Bookmarks and page labels belong to the whole document rather than to single pages, and the new file does not carry them over. If all you need is to turn pages, Rotate PDF keeps bookmarks, form fields and page labels. A PDF with a password or permission settings cannot be opened, because ClipLime cannot decrypt files. It warns when a file looks large for your device, around 60 MB on a phone.
What goes wrong, and the fix
- You moved the wrong page. Undo steps back, and Reset returns to the order you opened.
- The bookmarks are gone. Plan for it: Organize PDF cannot keep them, and Rotate PDF, which does, cannot change the order.
- The weave looks wrong. Undo it first, then try the other backs option and read the preview, or add blank pages where backs were skipped.
- The tab runs out of memory. Use a computer, or take the part you need first with Extract PDF pages.