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I made a PDF from phone photos and some are sideways. Should I rotate the photos first or rotate the PDF pages afterwards?

Both routes work, and the choice depends on what you have right now. If you have not made the PDF yet, rotate the photos first with the image rotate tool, so the images to PDF tool lays each one out upright on its page. If the PDF already exists, rotate its pages here: the rotation value changes without recompressing the images, so nothing loses quality.

Published · 3 min read

First: are the photos really sideways?

A phone saves the picture as the sensor read it and adds an orientation tag telling the gallery how to display it. Many converters ignore that tag, so photos come out sideways. The Images to PDF tool reads the tag and really turns the image before placing it on the page, so it looks as it does in your gallery. So if your photos are sideways even in the gallery, such as a receipt shot with the phone tilted, they are genuinely sideways and need one of the two fixes.

Route one: rotate the photos before converting

  1. Open Image rotator and flipper, rotate each sideways photo and download it.
  2. Open Images to PDF and add all the photos in the order you want.
  3. Choose the page size, orientation and fit mode, then create the PDF.

The upside: every photo goes in upright, so you can choose one orientation for all pages, portrait for example, and the photos are fitted inside them. The small catch: the image rotate tool saves JPEG and WebP at quality 92, which is a light recompression. If that matters to you, save the rotated photos as PNG, knowing they will be larger.

Route two: rotate the PDF pages afterwards

  1. Open Rotate PDF pages and choose the finished file.
  2. Choose 'Selected pages' and select only the sideways pages.
  3. Press 'Right 90°' or 'Left 90°' as needed, check the thumbnails, then download.
Worked example

A 6-page PDF of receipt photos, where pages 2 and 5 are sideways and need a clockwise turn.

You select 2 and 5 and press 'Right 90°', and the summary shows: Pages that will be rotated: 2 of 6, and 90° clockwise: pages 2, 5.

The upside: no recompression at all, because the tool changes only the rotation value. The difference to know about: the whole page turns, margins included. A portrait A4 page holding a sideways photo becomes a landscape page, so the file ends up with pages in both orientations. That is perfectly fine for reading on screen, but keep it in mind if you will print.

The practical answer

  • You have not made the PDF yet and want every page in the same orientation: rotate the photos first.
  • The PDF is finished or came from someone else: rotate the pages.
  • Image quality matters above all: rotate the pages, the only route that recompresses nothing.

Common questions

Can I rotate a photo 45 degrees to fix a tilt?

Not with either tool. Both turn in right angles only.

I rebuilt the PDF after rotating the photos. Do I still need the PDF rotate tool?

No. If every photo was upright before converting, the pages will be upright.