I scanned a 10-page report for work on my laptop, but every page ended up sideways in landscape. Is there an easy way to change the entire PDF into portrait orientation?
If the pages are just sideways, you need to rotate all 10 pages 90 degrees, not resize them. On a Mac, open it in Preview, select all page thumbnails, rotate, then save. On Windows, try rotating in your current viewer and printing to “Microsoft Print to PDF” if it won’t save the rotation. Keep the original backup first, learned that one the hard way.
You don’t need any conversion here, the pages just need rotating. On a Mac, Preview does it natively, rotate and hit save. On Windows, rotate in your PDF reader then print it to Microsoft Print to PDF, that bakes the rotation in. Clunky but it works.
Did that fix it? What system are you on?
If the pages are just turned sideways, you only need to rotate them 90 degrees, not convert the file. In PDFcap, open the PDF, choose Rotate Pages, apply it to all 10 pages, then save a new copy. Check the first and last page afterward, since scanners sometimes rotate odd and even pages differently.
Since the scan itself is sideways, you need to rotate the pages, not change the page size. In Acrobat open Organise Pages, select all thumbnails, rotate 90 degrees, then save. On a Mac, Preview’s Tools menu rotates left or right too. Don’t just use View > Rotate, that only changes your own screen. Save the real rotation so it prints and reads correctly for everyone else.
If the pages are simply sideways, open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat, choose Organize Pages, select all 10 pages, click Rotate clockwise or counterclockwise, then save a new copy. That changes the page orientation without rescanning. I learned the hard way to use Save As first, since rotating and saving can overwrite the original. If the pages are wide rather than sideways, you may need to crop or resize them instead.
I select all pages in Acrobat first, then hit rotate. Saves you from doing each one separately.
If it’s just rotation (not actual landscape content that needs reflowing):
- Open it in Acrobat or Preview (Mac), go to page thumbnails view
- Select all pages, right click, rotate 90 degrees the way you need
- Save as a new file so you keep the original scan untouched
If some pages are mixed orientation, do it a page at a time instead of all at once.
Totally with you on the Save As first, that’s bitten me too. One tip for all 10 pages: Ctrl+A with the thumbnails panel focused grabs them in one go, then rotate - not sure if it’s the same on Mac, I only have an old Windows laptop here.
I deal with sideways scans from new hires all the time! The simplest way is to open the PDF in your web browser, click the rotate button until it is upright, and then use Print to PDF to save a new copy. I learned the hard way that just rotating in a viewer doesn’t always save it.
My clients send me sideways scanned invoices all the time. You just need to rotate the pages 90 degrees using a program like Adobe Acrobat or ILovePDF.
What PDF software are you currently using on your laptop?