Rotate, Crop and Duplicate Pages
Rotate Pages
Rotation changes the PDF permanently — unlike View Rotation which only rotates the display (see 02.2).
| Action | Shortcut | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Rotate Clockwise (90°) | Ctrl+R | Page rotates 90° CW, saved in the PDF |
| Rotate Anticlockwise (90°) | Ctrl+Shift+R | 90° CCW |
Also via Pages → Rotate → … or thumbnail right-click → Rotate.
Multi-Page Rotation
Select several thumbnails before rotating. All selected pages rotate together.
Annotations and Rotation
Annotations rotate with the page — their page-relative coordinates are transformed by the rotation angle, so they keep their on-page position relative to the content.
Crop Pages
Cropping changes the visible area of a page. It does NOT delete the underlying content — it sets a "crop box" that limits what's displayed and printed.
Workflow
- Pages → Crop or right-click thumbnail → Crop.
- The page enters crop mode.
- Drag the crop rectangle to the desired size.
- Confirm with
Enteror the Apply Crop button.
Uncrop
Pages → Crop → Restore Full Page reverts to the original media box.
Crop Multiple Pages
- Select thumbnails.
- Pages → Crop → Crop to Selection.
- Draw a single crop rectangle; applies to all selected pages.
Useful for scanned documents with a consistent margin to trim.
Auto-Crop (where available)
Pages → Crop → Auto-Crop to Content detects the content bounding box and crops to it. Tunable via Settings → Crop → White-Space Threshold.
Duplicate Pages
Pages → Duplicate Page(s) or thumbnail right-click → Duplicate.
Options:
- Insert position (immediately after, at start, at end).
- Count (how many copies).
- Include annotations (default: yes).
Each duplicate is independent — editing one doesn't affect the original.
Replace Page
Pages → Replace Page — swap a page with one from another PDF. Annotations on the original page are preserved (at the same coordinates) where possible.
Split Document
Pages → Split Document… breaks the current document into multiple PDFs:
- By page count (every N pages).
- By page range (individual ranges).
- By bookmarks (one file per top-level bookmark).
Merge Documents
File → Merge Files… combines multiple PDFs into one.
- Add source files to the merge list.
- Reorder as needed.
- Merge → choose destination.
Annotations, form fields and bookmarks are preserved from each source.
Tips
Tip — Before applying a destructive operation (delete, replace, auto-crop), File → Save As to a backup. Page operations are undoable in-session but gone after save-close-reopen.
Tip — If you need to present a document with custom page order without modifying the original, use View → Custom Page Order (where available) — it creates a session-only view-order that doesn't touch the PDF.
Warning — Cropped pages still contain the full original content. A user viewing the PDF in another tool that ignores the crop box will see the "hidden" area. If you want to truly remove the cropped area, use Pages → Flatten Crop (where available) which rewrites the PDF with the reduced content.