Reorder PDF pages
Put pages in any order you like. Runs entirely on your device.
Reorder PDF pages rebuilds a document in the sequence you choose, page by page. Drag the previews into place, turn any page a quarter at a time, and drop the ones you do not want. The order runs as 3r90,1,2 on the command line as well. What you leave out never reaches the new file. Rebuilding drops bookmarks and form fields.
Questions
How do I write the new order?
Drag the pages into place and the order writes itself. Typed, it is a list of page numbers and ranges: 3,1,2 puts page three first, and 5-,1-4 moves everything from page five onwards ahead of the first four. Order is preserved exactly as you give it.
How do I turn a page as well as move it?
Use the turn buttons on the page, or on a tick-box selection of pages. Each quarter turn adds r90, r180 or r270 to that page in the order string, so 3r90,1,2 puts page three first and stands it on its side. A turn is added to whatever the page already carries, so a scan that arrives sideways and is turned once lands upright.
What happens to pages I leave out?
They are dropped. The order you give is the whole document, this is a reorder-and-select tool, which is why leaving out page 4 removes it.
Can I repeat a page?
Yes. A page listed twice is emitted twice, so 1,1,2 gives a three-page document that opens with page one printed back to back. Reordering is the one place a repeat is an instruction rather than a typo, which is why this tool keeps them and the page-range tools do not.
My scanner gave me every front, then every back. Can this fix it?
Yes, in one press. A scanner without a duplex feeder gives you the fronts in order, then the backs with the stack flipped, so the backs arrive reversed. "Fix a two-sided scan" interleaves the first half with the reversed second half, turning a 6-page scan into 1,6,2,5,3,4. It stays switched off on an odd page count, because an odd stack means a sheet was missed and pairing 7 fronts with 6 backs would look right for two pages and be wrong after that.
Is this the same as removing pages?
Not quite. Remove PDF pages takes the pages to delete and keeps the rest in place; this takes the order to keep. Use whichever is less typing for your document.
What happens to bookmarks and form fields?
They are lost. The new order is built by copying your pages into a fresh document, so page content and the annotations attached to a page come across, while the outline (bookmarks) and the AcroForm field catalogue belong to the old document and stay behind. Every run rebuilds, so a plain reorder costs you them as surely as a turn does. When all you want is to turn pages, use Rotate PDF: it edits your document in place and keeps both.