Trim the displayed edges of a PDF page
Cropping adjusts the rectangle that a PDF viewer displays for selected pages. Use it to reduce unwanted borders or excess page space without turning the document into a new scan. You enter how much to trim from the top, right, bottom and left, in millimetres.
The tool changes the existing crop box. It does not delete the source content outside that box, which may still be extracted or displayed by another editor. Never use this operation to conceal a name, account number or other information that must be removed before sharing.
Decide whether cropping solves the problem
| Your situation | Recommended approach |
|---|---|
| Unwanted blank borders make a document awkward to read. | Start with small margins on a representative page. Reopen the download and check every trimmed edge before applying the same amounts across pages of different sizes. |
| A recipient requires a fixed paper size. | Use Resize PDF when the destination must be A4, Letter or Legal. Cropping reduces the visible area by the entered amounts; it does not place the content on a chosen paper size. |
| You want confidential text beyond an edge to disappear. | Use a redaction workflow and review its output. Cropping can hide content in the usual view while leaving that content in the file. |
Trim five millimetres from one sample page
The five-page sample has upright A4 pages with content inset from the edge. Cropping only its first page makes it easy to compare a changed page with four untouched ones.
- Choose device-document-lab.pdf and select Load PDF pages. In Pages to crop, replace all with 1.
- Set Top, Right, Bottom and Left to 5 under Crop margins in millimetres.
- Select Crop selected pages, download the output and open it in a PDF viewer.
- Compare page 1 with the original and with pages 2–5. Check the heading, illustration and footer near the new displayed edges.
Expected result. The document should retain five pages. Page 1's visible crop area should be approximately 200 × 287 mm, ten millimetres less in each dimension than A4. Pages 2–5 should retain their original crop areas. The underlying sheet and content are not removed.
Check the downloaded result
- Inspect every cropped boundary at a readable zoom. Check page numbers, narrow table columns and faint scan marks rather than judging only the main body text.
- Compare selected and unselected pages. The same margin values may be harmless on a spacious cover and excessive on a tightly printed appendix.
- Inspect rotated pages separately. This implementation applies margins to the underlying PDF crop-box edges; those edges can differ from the visible top, left, bottom and right after page rotation.
- Check print preview if the final destination is paper. The smaller visible area may be scaled by the printer, changing the physical size of the content.
Troubleshooting
- The wrong edge was trimmed on a sideways page.
Page rotation affects how crop-box edges appear in a viewer. The crop operation does not translate the four margin labels into rotated viewing coordinates.
Try this: Return to the original and test that page separately with a small margin. Use an editor with a visual crop selection when the required edge mapping is unclear.
- Cropping is rejected because too little page area remains.
The sum of left and right margins reduces width; top and bottom reduce height. The worker rejects a remaining width or height below half an inch.
Try this: Reduce the margins and check the current crop size. An already-cropped page has less space available than its original paper dimensions suggest.
- A name outside the crop can still be found or copied.
Changing the crop box hides the area from the normal view; it does not remove underlying text or image objects.
Try this: Do not share that file as a redacted document. Start from the original, use the dedicated redaction workflow and verify all sensitive areas in the new output.
Limits and compatibility
- Margins are cumulative
- The amounts are trimmed from the current crop box. Processing an already-cropped output again trims more; it does not replace the previous crop settings. Keep the original for revisions and recovery.
- Scope and resources
- One set of margins applies to the selected pages. There is no automatic blank-border detection or drag-to-crop canvas. Processing stays in the browser, with file and page limits shown on selection; preview thumbnails may cover only part of a long document.
Your files and form values are processed on this device. Downloaded copies remain wherever you save them. See how to check local processing and our privacy policy for site data and optional services.
Common questions
- Will cropping make the file smaller?
- Not reliably. The page's hidden content can remain in the PDF, so a smaller visible rectangle does not imply fewer image bytes or a smaller download.
- Can I undo the crop with this tool?
- The controls accept nonnegative trims rather than expansion. Keep the original and start again with smaller margins if you cropped too far.
Continue your document workflow
Maintained by Shakti Prasad Ram. Found a mismatch? Report the tool, browser and steps without sending a sensitive document. Back to the tool