Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages

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Learn how to rotate, move, delete, extract, or renumber pages in a PDF.

To manipulate pages in a PDF, make sure that you have permissions to edit the PDF. To check, choose File > Properties, and then click the Security tab. Permissions appear in the Document Restrictions Summary.

Rotate pages in a PDF

You can rotate all or selected pages in a document. Rotation is based on 90° increments. You can rotate pages using the rotate tools in the Page Thumbnails pane or using the Rotate option.

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and then choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

    The Organize Pages toolset in the secondary toolbar.

  2. In the secondary toolbar, specify the page range on which you want to apply the rotation.

    You can choose Even Pages, Odd Pages, Landscape Pages, Portrait Pages, or All Pages, or you can enter the page number you want to perform the operation on.

  3. After specifying the page range, for Direction, select either counterclockwise 90 Degrees or clockwise 90 Degrees .

  4. You can also apply the page rotation on a specific page by clicking the counterclockwise or clockwise rotation buttons displayed in the page thumbnail view.

    Page Thumbnail View
    Page rotation in the page thumbnail view.

    Note:

    To temporarily change your view of the page, choose View > Rotate View > Clockwise or Counterclockwise. The original page orientation is restored the next time you open the PDF.

Extract pages from a PDF

Extraction is the process of reusing selected pages of one PDF in a different PDF. Extracted pages contain not only the content but also all form fields, comments, and links associated with the original page content.

You can leave the extracted pages in the original document or remove them during the extraction process—comparable to the familiar processes of cutting-and-pasting or copying-and-pasting, but on the page level.

Note:

Any bookmarks or article threading associated with pages are not extracted.

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and then choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

  2. In the secondary toolbar, click Extract.

    A new toolbar appears below the secondary toolbar with the commands specific to the Extract operation.

    Choose Extract from the new toolbar to pull one or more pages from the PDF file.

  3. Specify the range of pages to extract.

    You can choose Even Pages, Odd Pages, Landscape Pages, Portrait Pages, or All Pages, or you can enter the page number you want to perform the operation on.

  4. In the new toolbar, do one or more of the following before you click Extract:

    • To remove the extracted pages from the original document, select Delete Pages After Extracting.
    • To create a single-page PDF for each extracted page, select Extract Pages As Separate Files.
    • To leave the original pages in the document and create a single PDF that includes all of the extracted pages, leave both check boxes deselected.

The extracted pages are placed in a new document.

Note:

The creator of a PDF document can set the security to prevent the extraction of pages. To view the security settings for a document, choose File > Properties, and select the Security tab.

Extract random pages from a PDF

You can also select and extract discontinuous pages from the page thumbnails in the left navigation pane of Acrobat.

Steps:

  1. Right-click a page thumbnail in the left pane, and then click Extract Pages.

    Extract non-sequential pages

  2. In the Extract Pages dialog box, specify the pages you want to extract and then click OK.

    Specify pages for extraction

Split PDFs into multiple documents

You can split one or more PDFs into multiple smaller PDFs. When splitting a PDF, you can specify the split by the maximum number of pages, maximum file size, or top-level bookmarks.

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and then choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

  2. In the secondary toolbar, click Split.

    A new toolbar appears below the secondary toolbar with the commands specific to the Split operation.

    Choose Split in the secondary toolbar to see the document splitting options.

  3. In the Split By drop-down list, select the criteria for dividing the document:

    Number Of Pages

    Specify the maximum number of pages for each document in the split.

    File Size

    Specify the maximum file size for each document in the split.

    Top-level Bookmarks

    If the document includes bookmarks, creates one document for every top-level bookmark.

  4. To specify a target folder for the split files and filename preferences, click Output Options. Specify the options as needed, and then click OK.

  5. (Optional) To apply the same split to multiple documents, click Split Multiple Files. In the Split Documents dialog box, click Add Files, and choose Add Files, Add Folders, or Add Open Files. Select the files or folder, and then click OK.

Move or copy pages in a PDF

You can use page thumbnails in the Navigation pane or the Document area to copy or move pages within a document and to copy pages between documents.

Move or copy a page within a PDF, using page thumbnails

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and then choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar and the page thumbnails are displayed in the Document area.

    The Document area changes to display page thumbnails.

  2. Select one or more page thumbnails.

  3. Do one of the following:
    • To move a page, drag the page number box of the corresponding page thumbnail or the page thumbnail itself to the new location. A bar appears to show the new position of the page thumbnail. The pages are renumbered.
    • To cut or copy a page, right-click and choose Cut or Copy. Click between the page thumbnails where you want to paste the page. A blue horizontal marker shows the selected location where you want to paste. Right-click and choose Paste. You can paste the pages in another PDF as well.
    Right click and copy the page

    Note:

    You can also perform the above operations in the left navigation pane by clicking the Page Thumbnails button.

Copy a page between two PDFs, using page thumbnails

Steps:

  1. Open both PDFs, and display them side by side.
    Note:

    Choose Window > Tile > Vertically to display the PDFs side by side.  

  2. Open the Page Thumbnails panels for both PDFs. Alternatively, go to Tools > Organize Pages on both the PDFs.

    Note:

    Click the Page Thumbnails button in the left navigation pane to open the Page Thumbnail panel.  

  3. Select the page you want to cut or copy. If you want to select more than one page, press Ctrl and then select the pages. Right-click the page thumbnail, and select Copy.

    Right click and copy the page

  4. In the page thumbnails of the target PDF, click between the page thumbnails where you want to paste the page. A blue horizontal marker shows the selected location where you want to paste. Right-click and choose Paste. The page is copied into the document, and the pages are renumbered. You can paste the pages in another PDF as well.

    Alternatively, you can also drag the page thumbnail into the Page Thumbnails panel of the target PDF.

    Right click and paste the page

Delete or replace pages in a PDF

You can replace an entire PDF page with another PDF page. Only the text and images on the original page are replaced. Any interactive elements associated with the original page, such as links and bookmarks, are not affected. Likewise, bookmarks and links that may have been previously associated with the replacement page do not carry over. Comments, however, are carried over and are combined with any existing comments in the document.

After you delete or replace pages, it’s a good idea to use the Reduce File Size command to rename and save the restructured document to the smallest possible file size.

A page before and after it is replaced. The page’s bookmarks and links remain in the same locations.

How to delete pages, using the Delete command

Note:

You cannot undo the Delete command.

Steps:

  1. Choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar, and the page thumbnails are displayed in the Document area.

  2. Specify the range of pages to delete.

    You can choose Even Pages, Odd Pages, Landscape Pages, Portrait Pages, or All Pages, or you can enter the page number(s) you want to delete.

  3. In the secondary toolbar, click Delete Pages , and click OK to confirm.

    You cannot delete all pages; at least one page must remain in the document.

    Note:

    If you select Use Logical Page Numbers in the Page Display panel of the Preferences dialog box, you can enter a page number in parentheses to delete the logical equivalent of the page number. For example, if the first page in the document is numbered i, you can enter (1) in the Enter Page Range drop-down list, and the page is deleted.

How to delete pages, using page thumbnails

Steps:

  1. Choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar, and the page thumbnails are displayed in the Document area.

  2. Select a page thumbnail you want to delete and click the icon to delete the page.

  3. Alternatively, click the Page Thumbnails button in the left navigation pane to open the Page Thumbnail panel, then select the page or group of pages you want to delete.

  4. Click Delete Pages  at the top of the Page Thumbnails panel.

How to replace the contents of a page in a PDF

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF that contains the pages you want to replace.

  2. Choose Tools > Organize Pages or choose Organize Pages from the right pane.

    The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

  3. In the secondary toolbar, click Replace.

    The Select Files With New Pages dialog box appears.

  4. Select the document containing the replacement pages, and click Open.

  5. Under Original, enter the pages to be replaced in the original document.

  6. Under Replacement, enter the first page of the replacement page range. The last page is calculated based on the number of pages to be replaced in the original document.

  7. Click OK.

How to replace pages using a page thumbnail

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF that contains the pages you want to replace, and then open the PDF that contains the replacement pages.
  2. In the Page Thumbnails panel of the PDF that contains the replacement pages, select a page or group of pages:
    • Select the page number boxes of the page thumbnails that you want to use as replacement pages.
    • Shift-click to select multiple page thumbnails. Ctrl-click to add to the selection.
    • Drag a rectangle around a group of page thumbnails.

  3. Ctrl+Alt+drag the selected page thumbnails onto the Pages panel of the target document. Release the mouse button when the pointer is directly over the page number box of the first page thumbnail you want to replace so that these pages become highlighted.

    The pages you selected in the first document replace the same number of pages in the second document, starting at the page number you selected to drop the new pages on.

Renumber pages in a PDF

The page numbers on the document pages do not always match the page numbers that appear below the page thumbnails and in the Page Navigation toolbar. Pages are numbered with integers, starting with page 1 for the first page of the document. Because some PDFs may contain front matter, such as a copyright page and table of contents, their body pages may not follow the numbering shown in the Page Navigation toolbar.

Printed page numbering (top) compared to logical page numbering (bottom)

You can number the pages in your document in a variety of ways. You can specify a different numbering style for group of pages, such as 1, 2, 3, or i, ii, iii, or a, b, c. You can also customize the numbering system by adding a prefix. For example, the numbering for chapter 1 could be 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and so on, and for chapter 2, it could be 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, and so on.

Note:

Using the Number Pages command affects only the page thumbnails on the Pages panel. You can physically add new page numbers to a PDF using the headers and footers feature.

Steps:

  1. In the left navigation pane, click the Page Thumbnails button to open the Page Thumbnails panel.

  2. Choose Page Labels from the Options menu.

    Choose Page Labels
    The Number Labels command is in the Options menu of the Page Thumbnails panel.

  3. Specify a page range. (Selected refers to pages selected in the Page Thumbnails panel.)

  4. Select one of the following, and then click OK:

    Begin New Section

    Starts a new numbering sequence. Choose a style from the pop-up menu, and enter a starting page number for the section. Specify a Prefix, if desired.

    Extend Numbering Used In Preceding Section To Selected Pages

    Continues the numbering sequence from previous pages without interruption.

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