Reorder pages

Belongs to

Category: Page; Document
Type: Changes
Since Version: 2017

What it does

Allows you to change the order of the pages in a document.

There are three preconfigured options:

Reverse pages (first page becomes last etc)
Swap first and last page
Swap even and odd pages

When you select one of these options, you can immediately see the new page order in the Preview section at the bottom of the pane.

Apart from that, you can configure for each individual page what the new page number should be. To do so, you should select 'Custom' from the list of options and enter the page numbers in the preferred order (one by one, or using the notation explained in the GUI).

Note:

Any 'forgotten' pages (not listed in the custom order), will be added at the end.
If a page is by accident listed twice, the first occurrence counts.

By default, page labels are re-ordered together with the pages, unless you clear the Move page labels checkbox.

Examples

In the table below you can find some examples. Remember that you can enter any combination you want; you're warned about syntax errors and you can preview the page order for a document of up to 1000 pages.

Notation	Meaning
One single page number 5	Put this page first, then add the other pages without changing the order. 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
R followed by one page number R5	Put this page counting from the back first, then add the other pages without changing the page order. 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10
One single page number followed by three dots 5...	Put this page first, add the following pages till the end of the document, finally add the missing pages (all without changing the page order). 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4
R number followed by three dots R5... R1...	Put this page counting from the back first, then put the following pages counting from the back of the document, finally add the other pages (7-10) 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
(number, number) ... (2,1)... (6,5)...	Swap the pages in between the brackets and do the same for the rest of the document. Other pages are added at the end. 2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5, 8, 7, 10, 9 6, 5, 8, 7, 10, 9, 1, 2, 3, 4
R number (number-number) number (number, number) R1 (3-6) 2 (8,7)	Put the last page first (10), then a page range (pages 3 to 6), then a particular page (2), then swap even and odd pages (swap 8 and 7), add leftover pages (1, 9). 10, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2, 8, 7, 1, 9

Use case

When receiving PDFs in spreads, after having split the pages and added marks and bleeds, page 1 (which is actually the back cover) should be moved to the last page. Using this Action, that's very easy.

Remark

Due to a refresh issue in Adobe Acrobat, sometimes the page order seems not to be changed after successfully running the Action. Saving and reopening the document may solve the issue.