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Cropping a PDF doesn’t turn the pages into pictures. The tool makes the visible area of each page smaller, so every reader and printer shows only the part you kept. The text, links and image quality stay exactly as they were.
When cropping helps
- Reading on a tablet or e-reader. Many papers and e-books have 2–3 cm of white around the text. Cut it off and the text gets noticeably bigger on the same screen.
- A scan with black or grey edges. Scanners and phone cameras often add a dark border. Cutting a few millimetres off every side cleans it up.
- Printing slides larger. Slides with a wide empty frame become small when you put several on one sheet. Crop them first, then use Pages per sheet.
- Keeping one figure or table. Crop that page to the area you need, then extract the page or save it as a JPG.
How to crop the pages
- Open Crop PDF and choose your PDF. You can add several PDFs at once; each one comes back cropped on its own. A PDF with a password asks for it.
- Choose how to crop. Set margins cuts the same amount off every page: type the top, right, bottom and left margins in millimetres, decimals allowed. Trim white edges looks at every page separately and crops it to its content, plus a small white margin you choose (5 mm by default). Blank pages are left as they are.
- Check the preview. The dashed box shows what stays. Use the arrows to look at other pages, because a header, a page number or a footnote can sit closer to the edge than the rest of the text.
- Crop only some pages if you want. Type the page numbers in the pages field, for example 1, 3-5. Leave it empty to crop every page.
- Click Crop pages and download. The file ends in -cropped.pdf. Several files come back together in one ZIP.
Good to know
- Margins follow what you see. “Top” is the top of the page in your reader, also for rotated pages. Pages of different sizes keep their own size minus the margins.
- Light edges count as white. Trim white edges treats a faint grey scanner border as white, so it’s cut off too. A dark border isn’t: cut that off with Set margins.
- Margins larger than the page are refused with a message, so a tiny page can’t disappear by accident.
- The file doesn’t get smaller. The cut-off part is hidden, not deleted, so the file size stays about the same. To shrink it, use Compress PDF afterwards.
Cropping is not redacting
The page box is made smaller, but the content outside it is still in the file. Any reader shows and prints only what you kept, but a PDF editor could enlarge the page box again and bring it back. So don’t crop away a name, an address or a number you want gone for good. For that, use Redact PDF, which removes the content from the file, and read how to black out a Social Security number in a PDF.
Cropping happens in your browser, so your PDF isn’t uploaded to a server. Verify that no PDF is uploaded explains how to check it yourself.
Frequently asked questions
Does cropping a PDF reduce the quality?
No. Nothing is turned into a picture. The pages stay as they were, with their text, links and image quality. Only the visible area changes.
Can I crop every page to a different size?
Choose Trim white edges: every page is looked at separately and cropped to its own content. With Set margins, every page loses the same margins and keeps its own size minus those margins.
Can I crop just one page of a PDF?
Yes. Type the page number in the pages field, for example 4. The other pages stay as they are.
Is the cropped-off part really gone?
No. The page box is made smaller, so readers and printers show only what you kept, but the content outside it is still in the file. To remove something for good, use Redact PDF.
Is my PDF uploaded to crop it?
No. It happens in your browser, so your file isn’t uploaded to a server. You can check it yourself in your browser’s network tab.