You have a 40-page PDF where each page is an exhibit — different exhibits, scrambled order. You need them alphabetically by exhibit title.
Alphabetical reordering is fiddly because content-aware sorting isn't a one-click feature in most tools. Here's the pragmatic Flint workflow.
Inspect content via thumbnails
Open reorder PDF. Thumbnails show enough of each page to identify the exhibit title at a glance — often the largest text on the page. Make a list (mental or written) of exhibit titles. You're effectively building a sort key by eye.
Drag in alphabetical order
Start with the A-titled exhibits. Drag them to positions 1-N. Then B-titled, then C, and so on. The grid shows your progress. By the time you get to Z, the document is sorted.
Faster: split, rename, merge
For 40+ exhibits this is faster: split into single pages, rename each output file with the exhibit title ('Exhibit-Apple.pdf', 'Exhibit-Banana.pdf'), drop the renamed files into merge PDF in alphabetical filename order. Five extra minutes of renaming saves 30 minutes of dragging.
Automated approach for power users
If each page has machine-readable exhibit metadata (a barcode, a header text), some PDF libraries can sort pages by extracted text. For the casual user, the visual approach above is faster than setting up automation.
FAQ
Why isn't there a one-click 'alphabetize' button?
Page content isn't structured for sorting. Each page is unique; there's no universal sort key. Filename-based sort during merge is the practical alternative.
Does this preserve bookmarks?
Bookmarks remap to new page positions. The 'Exhibit B' bookmark points at wherever Exhibit B ended up.
Can I sort in reverse alphabetical?
Same flow, drag from Z to A. Or merge in reverse filename order using a Z-A sorted folder view.
What if some pages should stay first regardless?
Move cover/intro pages to position 1 first, then alphabetize the rest.
Drag alphabetically, or split-rename-merge for speed. Reorder pages.