How to Rotate A PDF and Save it Without Acrobat

PDF is one of the most popular formats for sharing, but there will be some PDF files from scanners that are not rotated properly. PDFs with inconsistent page orientation can be inconvenient to read, so you need to rotate these pages to the correct orientation.

Adobe Acrobat does a good job of rotating pages in PDF, but its high price has dissuaded many users. How to rotate PDF with Acrobat alternatives? Follow the three methods below to choose the correct appearance for your PDF files.

Rotate A PDF and Save it on Windows

PDFgear is considered one of the best software to rotate PDF pages and you can use it to rotate PDFs without any effort. It has a user-friendly interface and intuitive options that make the task of rotating PDF page， easy to handle for novices and experts alike. Here is how to batch rotate pages in PDF files.

Step 1. Open the PDF with PDFgear

Download PDFgear Desktop for free to your Windows PC, wait for its successful installation, and open the software. Click the red Open File button on the main page to import the PDF files you want to change.

Step 2. Rotate PDFs Clockwise or Counterclockwise in Batches

Select the Page tab from the menu bar, and the Rotate tool will appear in the options. Click to select multiple pages, then click Rotate left or Rotate right button. Click the button once and the page will be rotated 90 degrees, repeat the action to get the rotation effect you want.

Mouse over a PDF page and four small icons will appear on the right side of the page, the top icon supports you to rotate your PDF to the left or to the right.

Step 2. Save the New Rotate PDF

If you are satisfied with the rotation action, go to the top menu bar and click the “Save as” button. Then in the pop-up save window, name the rotated PDF with the name you want and choose an output location. Finally, click the Save button again, and the permanently rotated PDF file will be successfully saved.

Rotate PDF on Mac Without Acrobat

The built-in Preview App on Macbook can help you handle many tasks related to PDF, and rotating PDF is a piece of cake for it. You can use the Preview program to rotate individual pages in PDF or all at once.

Step 1. Open A PDF with the Preview

Double-click any PDF file to open it in the Preview App on your Mac, or right-click a PDF file and choose Preview as the opening method.

Step 2. Rotate PDF Page to Left or Right

Click the “Rotate” button in the top toolbar to rotate the PDF to a specific direction.

You can also rotate your PDF left or right by clicking on Tools in the menu bar.

To rotate all pages in the PDF, hold down the Shift key to select multiple pages in the sidebar thumbnails (or use the shortcut ⌘ + A to select all pages), and then perform the rotation action until you are satisfied.

Step 3. Save the Rotated File

To save the rotated PDF file, click “File➙Save” in the menu bar or use the shortcut key “⌘ + S”.

Rotate A PDF Online on Google Chrome

What you don’t know is that you can choose Google Chrome to view the PDF, then you can rotate the PDF and save it. You should note that this method only allows you to rotate one page at a time. If you have more than one page in the PDF file to rotate, this method is time-consuming.

Step 1. Open the PDF with Google Chrome

Find the target PDF file on your device, right-click the file and select Google Chrome as the open method.

Step 2. Rotate PDF pages counterclockwise

All PDF page thumbnails will be displayed in the left sidebar, slide the middle mouse button’s scroll wheel or pull the slider to select a page that needs to be rotated.

Click the Rotate button on the screen to rotate the PDF page counterclockwise. If you want to rotate the page more than 90 degrees, keep clicking the Rotate button.

Step 3. Download the Permanently Rotated PDF

After your PDF is successfully rotated to the correct position, you can click the Download button in the upper right corner to save the new PDF file. Select a name for the file in the Save pop-up and then click the Save button to save the location.

To Sum Up

To avoid looking at your document from the sideway, the three methods described above can immediately rotate the pages of the PDF to make everything look right. We have come a long way from the days when we could only rely on Adobe Acrobat to rotate PDFs, and the proliferation of online tools and offline programs has provided us with more options.

As you can see, you can rotate PDFs with simplicity if you have the right tools to rely on. Preview on Mac is a simple default option. If you have an Internet connection, you can also rotate PDFs directly in Google Chrome. But for pro-level PDF management, then take a PDFgear a try.