Double-sided pages scanned in the wrong order? Put them back together
Last updated 26 September 2026
A scanner with a feeder but no two-sided scanning gives you two files: every front page, then every back page - and because you turned the stack over, the backs come out last page first. Merging them does not help. Here is the fix.
How to scan the stack
- Scan the whole stack with the fronts up. Save it as one PDF: fronts.
- Turn the whole stack over, without shuffling it, and scan it again. Save it as a second PDF: backs.
Now fronts holds pages 1, 3, 5, 7 and backs holds pages 8, 6, 4, 2 - in reverse, because the last sheet is now on top.
Put every back after its front
- Open Mix PDFs and drop both files.
- Put fronts first with the arrows.
- On the backs file, tick Last page first. This turns the reverse order around.
- Press Mix into one PDF. You get pages 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on, in order.
If the backs came out upside down
Depending on how you turned the stack, every back page can come out upside down. Rotate PDF fixes them all at once.
- Open Rotate PDF and drop the mixed file.
- Choose Only these pages and type the even pages, for example 2, 4, 6, 8.
- Press Turn upside down, check the pictures, and press Save the PDF.
Take out the empty backs
If some sheets were printed on one side only, their backs are blank pages. Open Delete pages, click each blank page to tick it, and press Remove.
Make it searchable
A scan is a picture, so Ctrl+F finds nothing in it. Run the finished file through OCR a scan and the words become real text you can search and copy, without changing how the pages look.