A coworker stopped by my office seeking a solution to a dilemma. She had received a large PDF document in reverse order (page 1 of the document was page 100 of the PDF, page 2 was page 99, and so on). Since backwards workpapers are the type of thing that can drive an accountant to the brink of insanity, there was a lot at stake here.
We brainstormed a few possible ways to reverse the page order. In the past, I had just used the pages navigation panel to rearrange the page order for small PDF files of five pages or less. However, for a long document of about 100 pages, this idea didn’t seem practical. We also could have printed off the entire document and resorted the pages by hand, but that didn’t sound like fun.
Naturally, I turned to Google. I searched for “reverse page order in Adobe Acrobat” and ended up in this Adobe forum. The sixth post in this forum provides Javascript code, which I saved to my Acrobat Javascript Folder. After that, a new item called “reverse” appeared under the document menu (see screenshot below).
Within a few seconds, the script put the pages in the right order, and I literally saved one accountant’s world from turning upside-down.
Woah, I never would have thought of that. That’s an awesome tip!
I’m with Tim – an awesome tip. Worked for me too on Acrobat 9. Thanks Dustin!
There’s an even easier solution if you use Acrobat X Pro. There is a free Reverse Page Order Action available here: http://acrobatusers.com/content/reverse-page-order-0
I’m using Acrobat 9 Standard. Thanks for the tip, Rick.
Of course this function isn’t anywhere to be found in Acrobat X after receiving a 300 page scan in reverse chronological order. Thanks Adobe!!!!
Anyhow. Thanks Dustin for sharing this solution
I do not see the “reverse” what is the Javacode that needs to be saved?
Shirley, the Javascript code can be found in the Adobe forum I linked to.
Thanks for sharing what you’ve found, now im on to sharing this to the colleagues!
Also you could try printing to PDF. There is a reverse order choice in the print to PDF properties. It simply makes a new PDF file in reverse order.
John, reverse printing takes out the OCR and page orientation. However, it works if those features are not important.
This is in response to John Cain’s comment … John, when I used Acrobat 7 Pro I was able to print in reverse order. I haven’t found that command anywhere in Acrobat X Pro. Thanks!
I have Windows 8 (not Pro) 64-bit and Acrobat X Standard.
I just tried the JavaScript file from the forum Dustin mentioned. In order for it to work, I had to do two things:
1. Change the code by changing from “Document” to “Edit” so that it appears in Edit menu because there is no Document menu in Acrobat X Standard
2. Put the JavaScript file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 10.0\Acrobat\Javascripts
Thanks Dustin.
HTH others..