Rearrange a PDF by drag, keystroke, preset or typed order
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A 24-page double-sided document was scanned one side at a time, so all the fronts arrived first and all the backs arrived last page first.
Input
scan.pdf 24 pages · Interleave
Output
scan.pdf in reading order: 1, 24, 2, 23, 3, 22 and so on
One click does what 24 drags would. The order and the number of moved pages are shown before you save, so a document that looks shuffled but is not is obvious. Pages are copied as objects rather than re-rendered, so each keeps its own size, its rotation and its selectable text wherever it lands.
Put a PDF's pages into a different order without recreating the document. Drag the pictures, use the arrow buttons, press Ctrl with an arrow key, or type the order out; whichever you use, the page shows the order you are about to save and how many pages have moved. Four presets cover the common cases: reverse a back-to-front scan, interleave a duplex scan taken in two passes, its inverse, and move a cover page from the back to the front. Every page keeps its own size, its own rotation and its selectable text wherever it ends up.
A back-to-front scan is one click on Reverse; a two-pass duplex scan is one click on Interleave.
Move an appendix behind the conclusion, or bring an executive summary to the front, without rebuilding the document.
A title page that came off the scanner last goes to the front with one click or one keystroke.
A double sided document scanned one side at a time arrives as the fronts followed by the backs in reverse. One click on Interleave gives 1, 24, 2, 23, 3, 22 and so on for a 24 page scan, which is reading order.
If a title page ended up last, click Last to front, or focus its row and press Ctrl+Home. The page is copied faithfully by pdf-lib, only its position changes.
Entering "5, 1-4, 6-" and pressing Apply puts page 5 first and the rest behind it. If the order you typed misses any pages, the tool names them rather than dropping them quietly.
The tool reads your file in the browser, seeds the working order as 1..N, and draws a picture of each page with pdf.js so you can see what you are moving. Saving builds a new document with pdf-lib and copies the pages into it in the order shown. Because pages are copied as objects rather than re-rendered, nothing is rasterised: text stays selectable, and each page keeps its own paper size and its own /Rotate entry wherever it lands. Measured on a document whose four pages carry four different rotations and on one with four different paper sizes, both survive a reversal with every page unchanged.
Four presets cover the orders people actually need. Reverse flips a back-to-front scan. Interleave takes a double sided document scanned one side at a time (all the fronts, then all the backs, which a sheet feeder delivers last page first) and puts it back into reading order. Odds then evens is the same operation the other way. Last to front moves a cover page that ended up at the back.
On a long document, dragging is not a way to work, so there are two others: Ctrl with an arrow key moves the focused page one place, Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End send it to the front or the back, and the order can be typed directly as something like "5, 1-4, 6-". A typed order that would leave pages out names them before you apply it, because dropping pages is not what a reorder is for.
No. Pages are copied as PDF objects with no re-encoding, so text stays selectable and vector graphics stay sharp. Each page also keeps its own paper size and its own rotation wherever it ends up.
Yes, three ways. Focus a page and press Ctrl with an arrow key to move it one place, or Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End to send it to the front or the back. Or type the order out, for example "5, 1-4, 6-", and press Apply.
The tool names the pages that are missing before you apply it. Reordering is not meant to drop pages; if that is what you want, the page remover is the tool for it.
They are not carried over, because a PDF keeps them in the document catalog rather than on the pages. Any bookmark would also be pointing at a page that has moved.
PDF parsing and editing happen in your browser. Documents, and everything inside them, are never uploaded or stored remotely.