Orientation of initially amorphous poly(ethylene terephthalate) films and sheets was carried out by means of tensile drawing in a tensile tester, roll-drawing using a series of four rolling stations, and by die-drawing. The drawing temperature was 80 and 90 degrees C and drawing rate ranged from 2 to 20 cm/min in the different processes. Crystallinity was observed to increase with draw ratio for all these processes. The onset of crystallinity development depends on the drawing rate. The glass transition temperature was essentially constant and crystallization temperature decreased with increasing draw ratio. The trans conformers content was observed to increase with draw ratio at the expense of the gauche conformers for the three processes. The orientation of the trans conformers increases readily from the beginning of draw and saturates rapidly. The orientation of the gauche conformers was negligible. Some differences are observed for the behavior of the 1020 and 730 cm(-1) benzene ring bands, which may be due to differences in the benzene ring configuration at the surface as a result of different deformation mechanisms for the die and roll-drawing. However, further investigations to elucidate this hypothesis are needed. The mechanical properties obtained in the longitudinal direction increased for all the processes. In the transverse direction, the roll and die-drawing processes induced a decrease in modulus and strength with increasing draw ratio, similar to that observed for uniaxial orientation. This indicates that these processes are mainly uniaxial, despite the plane strain nature of the deformation.