How to Flip an Image in Google Docs‍

Google Docs is an immensely-popular cloud-based word processing application for creating and editing collaborative documents. It offers a range of features, is very simple and easy to use, and is completely free.

Most users of Google Docs would have at least once created documents that contain images. Further, adding images to your document can be a great way to illustrate important data and information, or add decorative elements to the text.

Moreover, the brain interprets images much faster than text - hence, images can communicate an idea or concept almost instantly. Images also make the document more engaging to read, while giving context and depth to the text. While editing, you might have often wondered how to flip an image in Google Docs. However, image editing and manipulating features in Google Docs are limited. In this blog we are going to cover how to flip an image in Google Docs.

---

Table of Contents:

1. How to Flip an Image in Google Docs - Step-by-Step Guide
2. How to Rotate an Image in Google Docs - Step-by-Step Guide
3. FAQs: How to Mirror/ Flip and Rotate an Image in Google Docs

---

How to Flip an Image in Google Docs - Step-by-Step Guide

When you flip a picture, you get a mirror image of that picture. For instance, if there is text on the picture, it will appear backwards after you flip the picture, and objects will appear on opposite sides.

Google Docs doesn’t provide image manipulation features seen in other word processing software like MS-Word, or even professional software like MS-Powerpoint and Google Slides. 

So how to flip an image in Google Docs? You can flip an image in Google Docs with ease, albeit indirectly. Follow the steps detailed below to learn how to flip an image in Google Docs documents.

Step 1. Open a Google Docs document

Step 2. Insert the image into your document by clicking on ‘Insert’ → ‘Drawing’. Select ‘+ New’.

Step 3. A New Drawing dialog box will appear. Click on the Image icon, as highlighted below.

Step 4. Upload the required image from your computer, or add the URL of the image, by clicking the required option.

The image will be inserted into the Drawing dialog box.

Step 5. Click on ‘Actions’ → ‘Rotate’ → ‘Flip horizontally’ or ‘Flip vertically’ according to your requirements.

‘Flip horizontally’ will flip the image across a horizontal axis. This means, items in the image on the right side will be shifted to the left side, and vice-versa, as shown below:

‘Flip vertically’ will flip the image across a vertical axis. This means, items in the image on the top will be shifted to the bottom, and vice-versa, as shown below:

Step 6. After you’ve flipped the image, click on ‘Save and Close’ to insert the image into your Google Docs document.

Note: You can also edit the newly-inserted image by clicking the ‘Edit’ option at the bottom of the image.

The above points highlight how to flip an image in Google Docs. Read on to find out how to rotate an image.

How to Rotate an Image in Google Docs - Step-by-Step Guide

Rotating an image is not the same as flipping it. By rotating an image, you change the orientation of it on the page, so if you’re wondering only how to flip an image in Google Docs, this section isn’t for you. Rotating an image in Google Docs can be done in three methods:

Method #1: Using the Rotate Handle

The first, and easiest way to learn how to rotate an image in Google Docs is:

Step 1. Insert the image into your Google Docs document. (Note: Scroll to the bottom FAQs section if you’re not familiar with how to insert an image in Google Docs.

Step 2. Once you’ve added the image to your document, click on it to select it. You can see a blue bounding border on the image.

You can also see a big blue dot at the top of the image. (This is known as the ‘Rotate’ handle).

Step 3. Click on the blue dot and drag it across with your cursor to rotate the image, as seen below:

You can see that a small indicator pops up that shows the degree (angle) of rotation of the image as you drag the handle.

Step 4. Remove the cursor and you can see that the image rotates to the exact position or angle in which you leave it.

Note: The ‘Rotate’ handle works in such a way that the image snaps to commonly-used angle positions. (Like 45”, 90”, 180”, etc). This feature makes it easier to rotate the image by standard angles and helps you ensure accuracy remains perfect.

You can also hold the ‘Shift’ key in your keyboard to rotate the image such that it snaps to angles incrementally by 15-degrees in the chosen direction.

To revert back the image to its original position, simply click on the Rotate handle and drag it across until you see the angle set at 0”, as shown.

Method #2: Using Image Options

You can also rotate an image in Google Docs via the ‘Image options’ menu. This method provides a more accurate way to rotate images.

Step 1. Click on the image so that the blue bounding box appears.

Step 2. Click on the three dots icon at the bottom left of the image (labeled ‘Image options’) → select ‘Size and rotation’.

The ‘Image options’ dialog box will appear on the right, as shown below:

Step 3. Type the required angle of rotation in the ‘Angle’ field.

That’s it, your image will rotate correspondingly to the angle of rotation that you’ve specified.

Step 4. Close the ‘Image options’ dialog box.

Note: If you want to rotate the image by 90”, just click on the icon shown below:

Method #3: Using New Drawing

Yet another method to rotate an image in Google Docs is by using the Drawing dialog box that we saw earlier while learning how to flip an image. This method works best when you want to directly upload a rotated image into your Google Docs document.

Step 1. Insert the image into your document by clicking on ‘Insert’ → ‘Drawing’. Select ‘+ New’.

Step 2. A New Drawing dialog box will appear. Click on the Image icon, as shown below.

Step 3. Upload the required image from your computer, or add the URL of the image, by clicking the required option.

The image will be inserted into the Drawing dialog box.

Step 5. Click on ‘Actions’ → ‘Rotate’ → ‘Rotate clockwise 90”’ or ‘‘Rotate counter-clockwise 90”’ according to your requirements.

Note: You can also use the ‘Rotate’ handle as we did in Method #1 to rotate the image within the Drawing dialog box, and then save it into the document.

Step 6. Click on ‘Save and close’. Your image will now be inserted into your Google Docs document automatically.

FAQs: How to Rotate an Image/ Flip an Image in Google Docs

1. How to flip an image in Google Docs mobile version? Can I rotate/ flip an image in Google Docs mobile?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to flip or rotate an image on the Google Docs mobile version. The steps described above apply only to the web version. However, Google Docs does allow you to add and delete images in the iOS and Android mobile apps.

However, a neat workaround for this is to enable the ‘Desktop site’ option in your mobile-based browser and open your Google Docs document within the browser.

2. How to insert an image to Google Docs?

You can add images to Google Docs in multiple ways. If you’ve opened an image in an editor or have it open in a web browser, the easiest way to add the image into Google Docs is to Copy and Paste it. (You can use the keyboard shortcuts ‘Ctrl+C’ for Copy and ‘Ctrl+V’ for Paste).

To add an image to your Google Docs document, click on ‘Insert’ → ‘Image’.

You can then select the required option from the list, such as ‘Upload from computer’, ‘Search the web’, ‘By URL’, etc.

If the required image is on a website, first right-click on the image in the respective website, and select ‘Copy image URL/address’.

After copying the URL, just paste it in the ‘Image URL’ field in the ‘By URL’ tab in the image box.