How to Rotate a PDF in Google Drive

There’s so much data you watch every day. There is a rapid influx of documents, images, essential PDFs, and whatnot. PDFs are completely unavoidable in recent times. Every time you open your PDF through Google Drive and the orientation is different, you rotate your phone, and it looks fine. But it gets on your nerves when you are working on your laptop. It strains your neck like anything.

This is the most common issue amongst the hundreds of problems you encounter while viewing several documents daily. When you upload PDFs to Google Drive, they keep the same orientation they were initially constructed. This problem usually occurs when dealing with many PDFs created with a scanner. Without rotating them, they can be challenging to read in digital format.

Gone are the days when you were required to turn your head to view PDFs on Google Drive constantly. Now you (and your neck, of course) will benefit from learning how to rotate a PDF on Google Drive.

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Steps to Rotate Your PDF in Google Drive

Rotating your PDF in Google Drive is pretty simple. You can either spin it permanently and then re-upload, or you can turn it temporarily too for just one-time viewing. It all depends on your preferences.

There are many ways to achieve this. One method is inbuilt on your Google Drive itself; another is the manual way to get things done, while the rest works via third-party platforms. These methods are tried and tested and are used by many people worldwide.

Read How to Edit a PDF in Google Drive

Method 1: Temporary PDF Rotation in Google Drive

If you want to temporarily get rid of your irritating out-of-the-way PDF and see it well and not hamper the original orientation because it isn’t your file, this is the right way for you.

Although permanent rotation also doesn’t change the original PDF, you can choose any method, and it won’t make much difference.

Here are the steps to change the orientation (just for now):

First, open the PDF which you wish to change on Google Drive. Drive itself has a way to make things a bit more convenient for you.

Second, click on the print button on the topmost right corner of the preview window of your PDF. Don’t worry; we are not actually going to print your file. This option will allow us to modify our PDF without spending so much time here and there.

Now, as soon as the printing window opens for you to specify some formalities before you print your document, all you need to do is right-click anywhere on the open PDF.

Choose anything from ‘rotate Clockwise’ to ‘rotate counterclockwise’ depending on your requirement. You can also do this as many times until you get your desired adjustment.

This method, however, is compatible with most of the browsers barring a few.

Read How do you upload a pdf to Google Drive?

Method 2: Permanent PDF Rotation in Google Drive.

Printing the PDF to your Local Computer using Google Drive only

This method involves many routes to achieve the same result. All of them are easy to perform and safe too. Your PDF will be secure even when you use any third-party platform.

One, you can rotate it permanently while you are still in the print window. From the side pane, select the rotation option and change your PDF accordingly, clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Finally, click on the Print button to save it as a document (not printing it as a hard copy), and here you go! A new modified PDF will now be saved on your computer.

In this way, you can now view the changed PDF locally without altering the original file. This method is quick and easy to do.

Using Free Third-Party Platforms

This method is another way of a permanent modification, but simpler. It cuts away all extra efforts needed by you. You can now rely on these free and trusted PDF tools to take care of your work. Such platforms feature many options to choose from.

For example, PDF compressing, PDF conversion to other formats, PDF page rearrangement, PDF editing, signing PDFs, and whatnot are available nowadays. Users now have the freedom to change their PDF orientations, that too in very few easy steps.

Read How to move files from DropBox to Google Drive

Best Online Services to rotate your Google Drive PDFs

1. RotatePDF.net

RotatePDF.Net is one of the most used free platforms to rotate your PDFs permanently in an instant. Although free to use, you can also donate a token of thanks.

It requires you to upload the document you wish to rotate on your computer, select the rotation angle, and click the ‘rotate’ button. That’s it. You can now download the final result and upload it back to Google Drive. Your PDF is safe with them: it never leaves your browser! Your own device performs the rotation.

It also supports many other PDF modifying tools to choose from. You can alter a specific PDF page and the entire document.

2. PDFescape

PDFescape is another free platform to rotate your documents. The interface is super easy to understand. It also features a desktop version to download, using which you can work offline too.

The rotating process is pretty similar to what we saw before. You only need to upload your PDF(already downloaded from Google Drive before) and then choose to rotate in whichever direction. Finally, click on the download button and retrieve your perfected PDF!

This service is used by many consumers worldwide. The additional options include annotations, size changes, page modifiers, fill-out forms, or password protection. The only drawback here is the limit. You can only use PDFs whose size is up to 10MB or 100 pages.

Read Google Drive vs Amazon Drive – Which one is the better Drive?

3. PDF2go

PDF2go is a favorite choice among the masses. It is also available in the form of Google Chrome extension and Mozilla Firefox add-on. This ensures you don’t need to revisit the website every time you have a PDF headache. You can easily access the extension/add-on and get the things done in a swift.

The entire process is simple, with added instructions from the website as you proceed further. You can either upload a pre-download file from your local system OR link the PDF URL, add it from your Dropbox account, or even upload it from Google Drive itself without having to save it first. This eases your process to a great extent.

You can rotate each page or the complete PDF and eventually download it securely. It is also entirely free to use.

Read Google Drive Tips And Tricks To Learn Now

Final Words

Scanned PDFs are the worst. They end up in any direction, thus, being unusable. You can’t share it without changing them. This annoying problem can now be resolved quickly through these simple methods. It is much easier to execute them than you thought. It isn’t that big of a deal now!

One more thing you should consider while using other clients to rotate your PDFs is to be safe with the content you are uploading. The sensitive information should not be uploaded like that on random services without protection encrypts. The platforms discussed above are absolutely reliable for all these needs.

As an ideal collaborative, secure platform, Drive allows users to add encryption or specify certain access limits during file sharing if your PDF contains any sensitive information; this is such a win-win situation here.

And now you know, rotating PDFs on Google Drive is way more straightforward than it seems when you know how to do it and take precautions.