How do I move page 280 to the front of a 300-page PDF without dragging it past every page?
Scroll to page 280 and press its “Move page 280 to start” button. It jumps to position 1 in a single press and every other page shifts down by one. You can do this before all 300 thumbnails have rendered, which matters on large files.
Why dragging does not suit this job
Drag and drop is great for moving a page two or three places. Dragging page 280 to the top means holding it with the mouse while scrolling past hundreds of thumbnails, and letting go too early drops it somewhere in the middle. On a phone there is no dragging at all. That is why every page has four buttons underneath, two of which jump it straight to either end of the file.
The steps
- Open Reorder PDF pages and choose the file. A progress bar counts the rendered pages; you do not need to wait for it.
- Scroll to page 280. Each thumbnail shows its page number in the original file.
- Press the first button under it, named “Move page 280 to start”.
- Scroll back to the top: page 280 is now first and the number in its badge is 1.
- Press “Download in new order”.
A 300-page file where page 280 is an executive summary that was appended at the end by mistake.
After the press, the new order begins 280, 1, 2, 3. Pages 1 to 279 each move one place later, while 281 to 300 stay where they were.
Working before the thumbnails finish
Rendering 300 thumbnails takes a while, especially on a phone or with a heavy scan. The tool does not make you wait: the buttons work on pages whose picture has not appeared yet. If you know the page number you want, go to it and press its button straight away. And if a page's thumbnail cannot be drawn at all, its number is shown instead and it can still be moved and exported.
The “New order” line on long files
On a 300-page file the “New order” line shows the first 60 positions followed by an ellipsis, so the line does not run longer than the page. That is plenty to confirm page 280 is at the front. To check the end of the file, look at the badge numbers on the thumbnails down there.
- To send a page to the very end, such as a back cover that turned up first, use the fourth button, “to end”.
- After a move, focus stays on the same page, so keyboard users do not lose their place.
Common questions
Can I move the page straight to position 150?
There is no field for typing a position. Move it to the nearer end, then step it along, or drag it with the mouse if the distance is short.
Is there a limit on file length?
The tested limit is one file up to 100 MB and 500 pages.