In this paper, textured alumina ceramics were prepared from dehydroxylation of gibbsite films and the pseudomorphic and topotactic nature of the dehydroxylation of textured gibbsite films has been investigated. First, the precursor film with a (001)-textured structure was obtained via vacuum filtration deposition of diluted aqueous suspensions of gibbsite nanoplatelets. Subsequently, (001)-textured alpha-alumina ceramics were successfully achieved by sintering of the deposited gibbsite films without addition of alpha-alumina seeds. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) results show that, during the phase transition from gibbsite to alpha-alumina, both layered morphology and crystal's axis orientation have been retained to a considerable extent. For the first time, a direct XRD evidence of gibbsite topotactic dehydroxylation to the alpha-alumina phase is presented. It is believed that the method described here exploits gibbsite's pseudomorphic and topotactic dehydroxylation, not on individual particles scale but on a bulk form. The resulting structure can be considered as inorganic scaffolds which can have applications for fabrication of dense, textured alumina-based ceramics and other layered/textured nanocomposites. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.