How to Flip/Mirror an Image in Google Docs (in 2 ways)

Many word processing documents, including Google Docs, pretend to be a graphics manipulation program, thanks to a number of interesting and useful features. You can fine-tune an image, apply special effects, and perform basic operations such as cropping, resizing, rotating, flipping, or mirroring. The goal is to make the image look exactly the way you want it to.

In today’s guide, we’ll look at two ways you may mirror or flip (or rotate) an image in Google docs.

In the first option, we’ll look at how to flip an image in Google Docs using the rotate feature. Then in the last option, we’ll see how to do the same thing using the drawing tool in Word.

Without any further ado, let’s get started.

How to rotate an image in Google Docs using Image Options

Step 1: Open Google Docs

Launch Google Docs if it is not already open. You can read this article on how to open Google Docs.

Step 2: Insert the image you want to flip

Before you can rotate an image in Google Docs, you first of all need to make it available by inserting it.

To insert an image in Google Docs, simply click to place the cursor where you want to insert the image and go to Insert > Image > Upload from computer. Browse and select the image you want to insert.

Step 3: Right-Click on the Image and select Image Options

After successfully inserting the image, simply right click on the it and select Image options.

How to open Image Options in Google Docs

This will open the Image Options pane on the right. This pane contains a lot of editing features that will allow you to size, rotate, text-wrap, reposition, recolor, and make some adjustments to your image.

Step 4: Select Size and Rotation from the Image Options pane

On the Image Options pane, you’ll see Size & Rotation. Click to expand it.

When the Size & Rotation expand, you’ll see some controllers for sizing and rotating the image.

Under the Rotate group, play with the rotation controller to adjust how much you want the image to be rotated.

After you are done rotating the image, you can close the Image Options pane and save your work.

And there you have it, a 4-step process to insert and rotate an image in Google Docs.

How to Flip an image in Google Docs using the Drawing Board

Using the Drawing Board in Google Docs allows you to adjust images much more easily than doing it directly on the page.

In the steps below, I’ll show you exactly how to flip an image in Google Docs in a matter of few clicks.

Let’s get started already.

Step 1: Open Google Docs

Launch Google Docs if it is not already open. You can read this article on how to open Google Docs.

Step 2: Insert the image you want to flip

Before you can flip an image in Google Docs, you first of all need to make it available by inserting it.

Step 3: Select and cut the image.

After inserting the image you want to flip, simply right click on it and click Cut on the shortcut menu.

Alternatively, press Ctrl+C to cut the image.

Step 4: Open the Google Docs Drawing Board

To open the Google docs drawing panel, simply navigate to the insert tab, click on it and a drop-down list of items will appear. Click on Drawing from the list, then click again on New from the extended list.

After this step, the drawing board window will appear as shown in the screenshot below;

Display of the drawing window in Google docs

Step 5: Paste the image you copied

Once the Drawing board is opened, press Ctrl+V to paste the image we copied in step 3.

Step 6: Right-Click on the Image, select Rotate > Flip Horizontally or Flip Vertically.

After pasting the image, right click on it to bring up the image shortcut items.

Go to Rotate and select either Flip Horizontally or Flip Vertically to finally flip the image. You can also rotate it clockwise 90 degrees or counter-clockwise 90 degrees.