The right order for cleaning up a scanned PDF
4 min read
With scans, sequence matters. Work in the wrong order and you'll do the same job twice.
Start by looking at what you have
Fixing things before you know what's wrong creates extra work. Check the page count, the orientation, and whether page sizes are mixed.
Duplex scans from a sheet feeder are the usual offenders: reversed backs and blank sheets slipped into the middle.
Step 1: Fix orientation
Straighten the misrotated pages first. If you reorder before rotating, it gets hard to tell which thumbnail is which page.
Adjust individual pages from the thumbnails when the angles differ. If the whole document is sideways, one rotate-all does it.
Step 2: Delete blanks and duplicates
Once everything is upright, blank pages are easy to spot. Remove them along with any duplicated scans.
You can pick pages from the thumbnails or type page numbers. When most pages go, it's faster to select the keepers and invert the selection.
Step 3: Reorder
With only the pages you want left, set the order. This is where you fix a document that scanned back to front.
If odd and even pages were scanned as separate batches, extract each one and then interleave them in the merge tool.
Step 4: Finish
Add page numbers if you need them, and a watermark if the file is going out to other people. Finally, consider compressing.
Scans are image-heavy, so compression usually helps here. Check that the text is still legible in the result before you use it.