Crop PDF
Trim the empty margins around your pages
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PDF document · Up to 100 MB
How do you crop the margins of a PDF page?
The tool redefines the visible area of every page: you give a margin in millimetres and it trims that much from the top, right, bottom and left. Nothing is deleted from the file — the content stays where it was and simply is not displayed, so being a millimetre or two out costs you nothing.
What cropping does not do
- It does not delete the cropped part from the file — that content is kept, just hidden.
- It does not set a different margin per page: the value you give applies to the whole document.
- It does not straighten a skewed scan or centre the page.
Example: wide margins from a scanner
A scanned 12-page A4 document carried roughly 18 mm of empty margin on every edge. Trimming 12 mm from all four sides brought the visible area down from 595×842 points to 527×774 while leaving the text area untouched. The file size barely moved: no image is redrawn, only the page boundaries are rewritten.
When dissertation appendices have to match
Dissertation appendices are usually assembled from several sources — some scanned, some from print, some born digital. The result is one volume whose pages have visibly different margins, and that shows up the moment it is printed. Bringing every margin to one value makes the volume read as a single document. The important detail is that cropping works through the visible area, so the original content stays in the file: if a different margin is needed later, it can be put back. Look through the document afterwards: page numbers, running heads and the edges of tables often sit close to the edge of the sheet and disappear along with the margin when the crop is too deep. The value is applied identically to every page, so if the original file has uneven margins you will need to crop the pages in groups.
| Accepts | PDF document |
|---|---|
| Returns | PDF document |
| Maximum file size | up to 100 MB |
| Maximum pages | up to 500 pages |
| Several files at once | No |
| Is the file uploaded | No — everything runs in your browser |
| Price | Free |
| Account needed? | To download — yes (free) |
Frequently asked questions
Can cropped text be recovered?
Yes. The tool does not remove content, it only shrinks the visible area, so a PDF editor can restore the original margin.
Can I set a different margin for each page?
No. The margin you give is applied to every page equally. If different pages need different crops, separate them first with the Extract pages tool.
What if the margin is larger than the page?
The tool refuses the job and says so. Otherwise the result would be blank white pages, and you would only find out on opening the file.
Does the file get smaller?
Barely. Cropping only changes the page boundaries. Use the Compress PDF tool to reduce file size.