Replace page orientation

[dantard]

Hello,
I have a PDF file where the orientation of the pages (that returned by page.rotation) is 270 degrees while I can see the page vertically as I need to.
I'd need to change the orientation of the page to 0 without rotating the page, that is, leave the page with the current visible orientation but also have page.rotation return 0.

I also tried setting the /Rotate xref but it has, as expected, the same result as using page.set_rotation().

Is there any easy way of doing that?

Thanks in advance.

[JorjMcKie]

Yes, there is:

import fitz

doc = fitz.open()  # new output file
src = fitz.open("input.pdf")  # source file

for src_page in src:  # iterate over input pages
    src_rect = src_page.rect  # source page rect
    w, h = src_rect.br  # save its width, height
    src_rot = src_page.rotation  # save source rotation
    src_page.set_rotation(0)  # set rotation to 0 temporarily
    page = doc.new_page(width=w, height=h)  # make output page
    page.show_pdf_page(  # insert source page
        page.rect,
        src,
        src_page.number,
        rotate=-src_rot,  # use reversed original rotation
    )

doc.ez_save("output.pdf")

[sebastianvao]

I don't know you, I'll probably never be able to see you in my life. But I want you to know that I love you.

Thank you so much

[dantard]

Thank you very much, that's exactly was I was looking for.

[dantard]

There would be a way of doing the same keeping annotations, widgets and so on?
I just checked that when using document.insert_pdf() (instead of page.show_pdf_page()) the page maintains its original orientation in the new document, so it is not useful in this case.

[JorjMcKie]

You are right: annotations and widgets of source pages are not part of the new, rotation-free page.
This has a reason:
These object types are not part of the page. That is different from graphics, images, standard text etc.
Therefore, annots and fields can be maintained with a different authorization level.

While there technically also are ways to achieve the effect you want, the effort is considerably higher and would require a real utility.

[JorjMcKie]

However: If you do not absolutely need the annotations and fields as annotations / fields, but only their appearance in form of standard page content, then you can first convert the source PDF using doc.convert_to_pdf().

Given a bit of luck (compatible fonts especially - no Type3 etc.), tthis could be the solution.