Organize PDF pages into the order you want

This rebuilds a document from a list of page numbers you write, and the list is the answer: 3,1,2 puts page three first, 1-5,8 keeps six pages and drops the rest, 8-5 turns that run around, and a page written twice comes back twice. Pages are copied rather than redrawn, so nothing changes size or quality. Your upload is left as it is; what you download is a new file.

It works in page numbers, not thumbnails. If you need to see the pages while you arrange them, the PDF editor has a page manager that shows them.

Put the pages in order

No account. Your upload is deleted after 2 hours, the result after 24 hours.

How it works

  1. Open the document and note the numbers. The box takes page numbers, not thumbnails, so it helps to have the file open in a reader beside you. Numbers are the file’s own, counted from 1.
  2. Write the order you want. Commas list pages, a dash makes a run, and a run written high to low reverses it: 3,1,2 or 1-5,8 or 10-1. Leave it at ‘all’ and the document comes back unchanged.
  3. Check the page count. One PDF comes back. If it has a different number of pages from the original, the result says so — the quickest way to catch a range that did not mean what you thought.

What the options do

The form above lists the options this tool is running today, straight from the server. This is what they are for.

New page order
The whole tool. Page numbers as your reader shows them, counted from 1: commas list pages, a dash makes a run, and a run written high to low (8-5) comes back reversed. Anything you leave out is dropped and anything written twice is duplicated, which is how you insert a divider page repeatedly. A number the document does not have stops the job with a message naming the real range rather than guessing, and an en dash pasted out of a word processor is read as an ordinary dash.

What this tool does not do

  • It works in page numbers, not thumbnails. If you need to see the pages while you arrange them, the PDF editor has a page manager that shows them.
  • The document is rebuilt, so bookmarks are not carried over and a form’s field definitions are left behind: the boxes still show on the page, but the file is no longer a working form.
  • It does not rotate, crop or resize anything. Rotate and crop are separate tools, and a page that came in sideways goes out sideways.
  • The words ‘odd’ and ‘even’ are not accepted here, because they have no order of their own. Delete pages takes both.
  • One file at a time. To weave two documents together, use alternate and mix.

What happens to your file

The file is uploaded because Organize PDF pages runs on our server rather than in the browser tab. It is kept for at most 2 hours and the result you download for 24 hours, then a scheduled job deletes both — a job has to be able to read the file while it runs, and you have to be able to retry a failed conversion without re-uploading. Neither needs longer.

Nothing about the contents is logged, and no one reads your documents. The retention page lists the same numbers the code enforces, and the privacy policy says who can reach the storage they sit in.

Questions

How do I move one page to the front?
List it first and then the rest: 7,1-6,8- puts page seven at the front of a document of any length. The trailing dash means ‘to the end’, so you do not have to know the page count to write it.
Can I reverse a whole document?
Yes — write the last page first, so 12-1 for a twelve-page file. A run written high to low comes back in reverse order, which is the fix for a stack that went through the scanner upside down.
What happens to the pages I leave out?
They are not in the new file. Your upload is untouched and is deleted on the usual schedule, so nothing is destroyed, but download the result before you close the tab.
Why can I not write ‘odd’ or ‘even’ here?
Because this tool keeps the order you write, and ‘odd’ has no order of its own. Delete pages accepts both words; run that first if you want every second page gone, then reorder what is left.
Do the bookmarks survive?
No. The document is rebuilt from the pages you listed, and the old outline points at pages that may no longer exist, so it is left behind. Create bookmarks can build a fresh outline from the headings or the pages afterwards.