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Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages

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  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. What's new in Acrobat
    3. Keyboard shortcuts
    4. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
    12. PDFs converted to web pages
    13. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    14. PDF articles
    15. Geospatial PDFs
    16. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    17. Change the default font for adding text
    18. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to JPG
    4. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    5. File format options for PDF export
    6. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. About certificate signatures
    5. Certificate-based signatures
    6. Validating digital signatures
    7. Adobe Approved Trust List
    8. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

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

Before you begin

We're rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, select help for your current experience.

In the new experience, the tools appear on the left side of the screen.

To manipulate pages in a PDF, ensure that you have permission to edit the PDF. Select Document properties from the hamburger menu , then select the Security tab in the dialog. Review your permissions for the document under Document Restrictions Summary.

Rotate pages in a PDF

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

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Rearrange the pages in your PDF in a few simple steps.

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Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and choose All tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize Pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed in the left pane.

  2. 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. Alternatively, you can enter the page number you want to operate on.

  3. After specifying the page range, for Direction, select either Rotate page left for counterclockwise 90° rotation or Rotate page right° for clockwise 90° rotation.

  4. You can also apply the page rotation on a specific page by selecting the buttons in the right pane.

    Page Thumbnail View
    Page rotation in the page thumbnail view.

    Note:

    To temporarily change your view of the page, from the hamburger menu, choose View > Rotate view > Rotate view right or Rotate view left. The original page orientation is restored the next time you open the PDF.

Extract pages from a PDF

Extraction is reusing selected pages of one PDF in a different PDF. Extracted pages include the content and the form fields, comments, and links of the original document.

You can leave the extracted pages in the original document or remove them during extraction.

Note:

Any bookmarks or article threadings associated with pages aren't extracted.

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and choose All Tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize Pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed on the left pane.

  2. Specify the range of pages to extract.

    You can choose Even pages, Odd pages, Landscape pages, Portrait pages, or All pages. Alternatively, enter the page number you want to extract.

  3. Select Extract under Page options.

    A new dialog appears with the commands specific to the Extract operation.

  4. In the dialog, select one or more of the following before you select 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 keep the original pages intact and create a single PDF for the extracted pages, deselect both the check boxes.

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 Document properties from the hamburger menu and then select the Security tab in the dialog.

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. From the short-cut menu of the page thumbnail, select Extract pages.

  2. In the Extract Pages dialog, specify the pages you want to extract and select 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 choose All tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed on the left pane.

  2. In the left pane, select Split. A command dialog appears for the Split operation.

  3. In the Split By 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, it creates one document for every top-level bookmark.

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

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

Move or copy pages in a PDF

Use page thumbnails in the navigation pane or the document area to copy or move pages within a document. You can also copy pages between documents using the page thumbnails.

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

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and choose All tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed in the left pane. The page thumbnails are displayed in the Document area.

  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, choose Cut or Copy from the context menu. Select between the page thumbnails where you want to paste the page. A blue horizontal marker shows the selected location where you want to paste. Select Paste from the context menu. You can paste the pages in another PDF as well.
    Note:

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

Copy a page between two PDFs, using page thumbnails

Steps:

  1. Open both PDFs and display them alongside each other.

    Note:

    To display the PDFs side by side, select Window from the hamburger menu  (Windows®) or the Window menu (macOS). Then select Tile > Vertically.

  2. Open the Page Thumbnails panels for both PDFs from the toolbar on the right. Alternatively, go to All tools > Organize Pages on both PDFs.

    Note:

    Select the Page Thumbnails button in the side panel on the right to open the Page Thumbnail panel.  

  3. Select the page that you want to cut or copy. To select multiple pages, press Ctrl and then select the pages. From the page thumbnail context menu, select Copy.

  4. In the page thumbnails of the target PDF, select between the page thumbnails where you want to insert the page. A blue horizontal marker indicates the location where you want to paste. Right-select 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.

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, aren't affected. Likewise, bookmarks and links that may have been previously associated with the replacement page don't 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 can't undo the Delete command.

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and choose All tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed on the left pane. 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 numbers you want to delete.

  3. In the left pane, select Delete pages , and the select OK to confirm.

    You can't 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 corresponding page. For example, if the first page in the document is numbered i, you can enter (1) in the Enter Page Range list, and the page is deleted.

How to delete pages, using page thumbnails

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and choose All tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed on the left pane. The page thumbnails are displayed in the document area.

  2. Select a page thumbnail that you want to delete. Then, select Delete from the Organize pages toolset to delete the page.

  3. Alternatively, select the Page Thumbnails button in the navigation pane. Then select the page or group of pages that you want to delete.

  4. Select the Delete  icon to delete the page.

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. Open the PDF in Acrobat, and choose All tools > Organize pages, or choose Edit > Organize pages from the global bar.

    The Organize pages toolset is displayed on the left.

  3. In the left pane, select Replace. The file explorer window appears.

  4. Select the document containing the replacement pages.

  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. Select 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-select to select multiple page thumbnails. Ctrl-select to add to the selection.
    • Drag a rectangle around a group of page thumbnails.

  3. Press Ctrl+Alt and then 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 page thumbnail you want to replace. The corresponding pages are highlighted.

    The pages you selected in the first document replace an equal number of pages in the second document. It starts at the page number that you selected to drop the new pages.

Renumber pages in a PDF

The page numbers on the document pages don't 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 specify various numbering styles for a group of pages, for example, 1, 2, 3, or i, ii, iii, or a, b, c. You can also customize the numbering system by adding a prefix. For example, pages in Chapter 1 can be 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and so on. Chapter 2 can have pages numbered as 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 navigation pane, select the Page Thumbnails button to open the Page Thumbnails panel.

  2. Choose Page Labels from the Options menu.  Alternatively, choose Edit > Organize pages from the global bar, and then select Page labels from the Organize pages toolset.

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

  4. Select one of the following, and then select 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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