How to Flip or Mirror an Image in Google Docs

You can flip or mirror an image in Google Docs by placing it in a drawing. This guide shows how, both for a new image and for one that is already in your document.

Before you start: use Google Docs on a computer. Google’s help describes creating drawings only on a computer; for the Android and iPhone apps it covers markups instead.

Note: the flipped result is a drawing that contains your image, not a plain image. Check how it looks if you later download the document in another format.

Step 1: Open your document

Go to docs.google.com and open the document you want the flipped image in, or create a new one.

Step 2: Insert a new drawing

Click Insert > Drawing > New.

Step 3: Add the image to the drawing

Click the image button in the drawing toolbar. If the image you want to flip is already in your document, insert it again here from the same source you used the first time.

Then choose where the image comes from: upload it from your computer, or pick it from another source such as Google Drive.

Step 4: Flip the image

With the image selected on the drawing canvas, click Actions > Rotate and choose one of:

• Flip horizontally: mirrors the image left to right. This is the most common choice.
• Flip vertically: turns the image upside down as a mirror image.
• Rotate clockwise 90° or Rotate counter-clockwise 90°: turns the image without mirroring it.

Step 5: Save and close the drawing

When the image looks right, click Save and close. The flipped image is inserted into your document.

If you were flipping an image that was already in the document, delete the original, unflipped image.

That’s it: your image is flipped.