Crop margins
Crop margins reduces the visible area of every page, from the top, bottom, left and right, by the amounts you set. You can work in millimetres, points or percentage, and pick specific pages. It is what you want for trimming the huge white margins off a scanned book before reading it on a phone. All processing runs in your browser.
Four steps, nothing to install.
The whole job happens on your computer, start to finish.
Choose the file
Drag the PDF into the tool window, or click to pick it.
Say how much to crop
Four fields, one per side. Leave at zero the sides you do not want cropped.
Pick the unit
Millimetres for most cases, points for typographic precision, percentage when the document has sheets of different sizes.
Crop and download
Get the PDF with a reduced visible area, and the text is still text.
Does cropping delete the content left outside?
No, and this is the most important thing to know about this tool. Cropping changes the visible area of the page, what the PDF format calls the CropBox. What falls outside that area stops showing in any normal reader, but it stays inside the file and can be restored by anyone who knows how to edit the document. This is NOT for removing personal data or redacting: we have no tool for that, and using this one would give you a false sense of security.
Why not turn the pages into images and crop for real?
Because it would destroy what most people want to keep. Cropping for real would mean turning every page into an image, and the text would stop being selectable, searchable and copyable. For someone who just wants the white margins off a scanned book, which is the normal use, that is a worse result.
What does the percentage count against?
The visible area of each page, one by one. In a document with sheets of different sizes, 5% crops proportionally on each, instead of applying the same number of millimetres to an A4 and an A3.
Can I crop only some pages?
You can. The pages field takes ranges (1-3) and single numbers (5), separated by comma. Leave it empty to crop all of them.
Can I use this to remove confidential information from a document?
You cannot, and it is the most dangerous mistake you can make with this tool. Cropped content stays in the file, merely hidden: anyone opening the PDF in an editor can restore the visible area and see it all again. To actually remove information, the path is to delete the whole pages that contain it, or export the pages as images and rebuild the PDF from them.
I asked for a crop and the tool refused.
Four causes, and the message says which. If all four fields are zero there is nothing to crop, and the tool says so instead of handing back an identical file, which would be pretending to have done something. If the values are so large that no area is left on the page, it also refuses, and the message says on which page it happened and what size it was: a PDF with no visible area opens blank in any reader.
I cropped and one page did not come out as I expected.
That page probably already had a visible area smaller than the sheet, which is normal in print work and in already trimmed scans. The crop is applied from the current visible area and not from the whole sheet, which is the correct behaviour: cropping 10 mm from the paper on an already trimmed page would cut far more than the 10 mm you can see.
The file is the same size after cropping.
That is expected. Since nothing is removed, the file weight does not drop. If the goal is a smaller file, the right tool is Compress PDF.
Questions about cropping margins.
Do I need an account to crop margins?
Yes. The account (magic link, no password) is needed for the subscription. This tool is part of the Premium subscription, EUR 1.99 a month, which removes the limits on every tool and adds OCR. Sign PDF opens on the free plan, with one signature a day.
Is the text still text after cropping?
Yes. Nothing is converted to an image, so the text stays selectable, searchable and copyable.
Does it work on documents with pages of different sizes?
Yes. In millimetres and points the same value is applied to all; in percentage, each page is calculated against its own visible area.
Are my files kept on your servers?
No. Since nothing is sent, nothing is kept outside your browser.
Too much white margin?
Deal with it now.
Open the tool and try it. Nothing to install, nothing sent anywhere.
Open Crop margins