How to reorder pages in a PDF
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Contents
To reorder the pages of a PDF, open Organize Pages, add your file, and drag the page tiles into the order you want. Press Apply & export, then Download organized PDF.
Every page appears as a thumbnail tile on a board. Besides dragging, each tile has buttons to move it one place, turn it a quarter turn clockwise, duplicate it, delete it, or insert a blank page before or after it. Above the board, Reverse flips the whole order and Reset brings back the order the file arrived with.
It runs in your browser tab, so your PDF stays on your device; files up to 100 MB open, and Undo walks back up to 100 edits. If you are already editing the file in Edit PDF, its page list can reorder pages too.
Step by step
- 1Open the Organize Pages tool and drop your PDF onto the box, or click it to choose the file. It stays on your device.
- 2Drag a tile to its new place, or use its arrow buttons to move it one place at a time.
- 3Use the buttons on a tile to turn it, duplicate it, delete it, or insert a blank page before or after it. Reverse flips the whole order.
- 4Each tile shows its new position and its original page number, so check what moved. Undo and Redo step through your edits.
- 5Press Apply & export, then Download organized PDF. The copy is named after yours, with -organized added.
Working on the page board
Each tile carries two numbers: a corner badge for its new position and a label for its original page, so you can see at a glance what moved. By keyboard, focus a tile's handle, press Enter or Space to grab it, move it with the arrow keys, Home or End, and press Enter or Space again to drop it.
An inserted blank page shows as a plain white tile labelled Blank page and takes the size and orientation of the page beside it, which is handy when the next chapter should start on a right-hand page in two-sided printing. The delete button is disabled on the last page left from your PDF, since the export needs at least one.
What the reordered file keeps
Each page is copied across, not re-rendered, so its content is untouched and selectable text stays selectable. Bookmarks and form fields travel with the pages you keep: a bookmark to a kept page still opens it, and the kept pages' fields stay fillable with their values. A bookmark that opens only a page you left out is not carried. The file also keeps the title and author, page labels and the document language. Attached files and a tagged PDF's accessibility tags are not carried. If you only turn pages, the export is not rebuilt at all: the file is saved in place and keeps everything, attached files and tags included, except its Producer and Creator entries, which now name pdf.xyz, and its modification date, which becomes the time you exported.
Reordering pages while you edit
Edit PDF has a page list of its own: beside the pages on a wide screen, or under Pages on a smaller one. Each thumbnail can be turned a quarter, followed by a new blank page, or deleted, and dragged or moved with its arrows into a new order. What you placed on a page moves with it, and each change can be undone.
When the only problem is pages on their side, Rotate PDF turns the pages you pick, or the whole document, without touching the order.
Common questions
Does reordering pages send my PDF to a server?
No. The reordered copy is assembled inside your browser tab, so the document stays on your device. Closing the tab before downloading discards the edit.
Can I add a blank page between two pages?
Yes. Use Insert blank page before or Insert blank page after on the tile next to where it should go. The blank page takes that page's size and orientation.
How do I reverse the page order?
Press Reverse above the board. It flips the whole order in one step, which suits a stack a scanner read last page first; Undo takes it back.
Does the reordered PDF keep its bookmarks and form fields?
Yes. Bookmarks and form fields travel with the pages you keep: a bookmark to a kept page still opens it, and the kept pages' fields stay fillable with their values. A bookmark that opens only a page you left out is not carried. The file also keeps the title and author, page labels and the document language. Attached files and a tagged PDF's accessibility tags are not carried. If you only turn pages, the export is not rebuilt at all: the file is saved in place and keeps everything, attached files and tags included, except its Producer and Creator entries, which now name pdf.xyz, and its modification date, which becomes the time you exported.
Can I reorder pages in the PDF editor?
Yes. In Edit PDF, drag a thumbnail in the page list, or use its arrows, to move a page; anything you placed on that page moves with it.