The Quickest Ways to Straighten a Scanned PDF

Straightening a PDF not only enhances its readability but also saves you time. A straightened PDF makes it easier to read, edit, or print the document. But how can you straighten a scanned PDF?

Fortunately, there are several ways to fix a skewed PDF. Adobe Acrobat Pro is a professional PDF editing tool that can automatically detect the skew angle and adjust the document accordingly. If you don’t have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can use the second recommended way, an online tool that can help you deskew a PDF.

Both of these 2 solutions are user-friendly and can help you straighten a PDF in just a few clicks. Let’s dive right into the steps to straighten a scanned PDF now!

How to Straighten a Scanned PDF with Adobe Acrobat Pro

Adobe Acrobat Pro is a powerful full-featured PDF tool that can help you straighten PDF pages with ease. Its deskew feature can automatically detect the skew angle and rotate the document accordingly. This means that you don’t have to manually rotate or adjust the document.

Known for all, Adobe Acrobat Pro maintains lots of great PDF features like editing scanned PDFs as in Microsoft Word, converting PDFs to any other format, encrypting PDFs for security concerns, etc.

So how to use Adobe Acrobat’s deskew feature?

Step 1. Upload the Crooked Scanned PDF

Get Acrobat Pro, and simply open the skewed PDF in it. The most important thing is you have subscribed to this software.

Step 2. Deskew the Scanned PDF Page

Click on the ‘Enhance’ tab > select ‘Scanned Document’ from the drop-down menu.

Then, make sure the ‘Deskew’ is already on > Select the ‘Recognize Text’, then click the “Enhance” button. Now Acrobat Pro does the rest of the work for you.

Step 3. Save the PDF File

Hit the ‘Command’+’S’ button to get the PDF saved to your device.

While Adobe Acrobat’s deskew feature is a great solution for straightening a scanned PDF, it is worth noticing that these features come at a cost, which may not be ideal for some users.

Anyway, if you need to straighten PDF pages frequently or work with a lot of scanned documents, the cost may be worth it in the long run.

Adobe Acrobat is not the only choice you have to get your crooked PDF straightened.

How to Straighten Scanned PDFs Quickly Online with Sejda

Sejda is an online PDF editor that offers automatic straightening and deskewing of scanned PDF pages.

It is capable of handling documents up to 200 pages or less than 100MB. However, if you need to work with larger documents or require additional features, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Let’s see how to straighten a skewed and scanned PDF with Sejda.

Head to the Sejda online Deskew PDF tool. Then upload the crooked PDF file. You are not supposed to preview the PDF file pages before you start the straightening process.

You will get the deskew PDF file immediately. This makes the small scanned crooked PDF file straightened very easily. Pretty quick as well.

FAQs with Answers When Straighten a Scanned PDF

What is deskewing in PDF editing?

Deskewing is the process of straightening a scanned PDF document that is slightly crooked or tilted.

You might want to know that this is done by analyzing the angles of the text and images in the document and rotating them to align with the page edges.

How do I know if my scanned PDF document needs to be straightened?

Several elements will indicate to you if the scanned PDF needs to be straightened:
The text lines, images, and other elements in the document aren’t parallel to the page edges, the document may be skewed.
A single skewed page among aligned ones may indicate a scanning error for that page.

Can I straighten a scanned PDF document without using a PDF editor?

Yes, Yes, online tools like Sejda allow you to straighten a scanned PDF document without needing a dedicated PDF editor.

Will straightening a scanned PDF document affect the quality of the text and images?

Straightening a scanned PDF document won’t affect the quality of the text and images, as long as the process is done correctly.

However, if the document is heavily skewed or tilted, then some distortion may occur during the straightening process. It is always a good idea to preview the document after straightening it to ensure that the quality is still acceptable.

Conclusion

This post shows how to straighten a scanned PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Pro and an online tool Sejda.

Adobe Acrobat Pro is so professional that it supports automatically detecting the skew angle and adjusting the document correctly, even if the file is a large file. However, you have to know it comes at a cost.

Sejda, on the other hand, offers automatic straightening and deskewing of scanned PDF pages for free on small crooked PDF files.

Get one that is perfect for you to straighten a scanned PDF file.