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A PDF and the margins to trim.
Document desk
Crop PDF
Cut whitespace off a document and keep it selectable.
Privacy built inYour work stays with you
Private PDF workspace
Crop PDF margins
Trim margins from the pages you choose while keeping text selectable.
Your work stays private in your browser while you use this tool.
What does crop pdf do?
Crop PDF trims margins from the pages you choose by rewriting each page's CropBox and MediaBox. Because it changes the page boxes rather than redrawing the page, text stays selectable and vector artwork stays sharp at any zoom.
- Input
- A PDF and the margins to trim.
- Result
- A cropped PDF with its text still selectable.
- Price
- Free
- Account
- Not required
How to use crop pdf
Choose your settings
Cut whitespace off a document and keep it selectable.
Save or copy
A cropped PDF with its text still selectable.
A practical tip
Cropping changes the visible page box — the trimmed content is hidden, not deleted.
When to use crop pdf
Remove the wide white margins from a scanned book page before printing it.
Trim a slide deck exported at letter size down to the slide area itself.
Cut a header or footer band off every page of a report.
Worked example
A concrete crop pdf example
- Input
- A4 pages with 10% trimmed from every side
- Result
- The visible area shrinks from 595x842 points to roughly 476x674, with the text still selectable.
What to expect
How it works
Each selected page's existing CropBox is used as the starting rectangle, falling back to its MediaBox. Margins are subtracted from that rectangle in points or as a percentage of the page, and both boxes are rewritten to the result. Pages with a rotation entry have their margins applied to the edges the reader actually sees, so the top margin trims the visual top rather than an unrotated edge.
Know before using
Limits and edge cases
- Cropping hides content rather than deleting it. The trimmed area is still present in the file and can be recovered by widening the page boxes again, so this is not a redaction tool.
- A crop that would leave no visible area is rejected instead of producing a blank page, and margins cannot exceed the page they are applied to.
Standards and sources
Common questions
Crop PDF FAQ
Is crop pdf free to use?
Yes. Crop PDF is free to use.
Does crop pdf keep my work private?
Yes. Your work stays private while you use the tool — nothing you enter is uploaded.
Does cropping make the file smaller?
Usually not. The hidden content is still stored in the document, so the file size is largely unchanged. Use the PDF compressor if reducing size is the goal.
Can someone recover what I cropped away?
Yes. Cropping changes which part of the page a viewer displays, not what the page contains. Never rely on it to remove sensitive information from a document you are sharing.