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Crop PDF Online

Trim the edges of PDF pages by dragging a box over the page, typing exact margins, or letting the tool find a blank white border for you. Free and done on your device.

  • Free
  • No signup
  • Nothing uploaded
  • No watermark

Drop a file here

PDF file · read on your device, never uploaded

Cropping changes what is shown and printed. The part outside the crop is hidden, not deleted. Use Redact if it must be removed for good.

Processed entirely on your device. Nothing was uploaded.

How to Crop a PDF by Dragging a Box

Crop PDF Online: before and after PDF A BEFORE CROP PDF PDF A AFTER

Scanned pages often arrive with a thick grey or white frame, slides come with wide empty margins, and some exports leave a printer’s crop marks around the page. Cropping cuts that away so the content fills the screen.

Here you see your actual page with a crop box laid over it. Drag the box or any of its eight handles, and everything shaded will be trimmed. Prefer numbers? Type margins in millimetres, points or per cent. Or press "Trim the white border" and the tool measures the empty space for you.

Trimming is worked out by this browser tab alone, so the document stays on your device from start to finish.

No software to install Free Works on any device

Step-by-Step Guide to Crop PDF Pages

Six steps, from choosing a file to downloading the trimmed copy.

  1. 1. Choose the PDF to crop

    Load the document with Choose file. Its first page is drawn with the crop box on top, ready to adjust.

  2. 2. Drag the crop box

    Pull a handle on a corner or side to move that edge, or drag the middle of the box to slide the whole frame. The darker area is what will be cut off.

    Fine control:

    • Reach the box with the Tab key, then nudge it 1 per cent at a time with the arrow keys.
    • Hold Shift with an arrow key to move 5 per cent at a time.

  3. 3. Or trim the white border

    The tool looks for empty margins on the page shown and reports their size in millimetres. Press "Trim the white border" to set the box to them. Reset puts every edge back to zero.

  4. 4. Type exact margins if needed

    Under Margins, switch between mm, pt and %, then enter how much to shave off each of the four sides. The box on the page moves as you type.

    mmpt%

  5. 5. Decide which pages to crop

    Under "Apply to", keep Every page for a scan with the same border throughout. To crop only some pages, enter them in the Pages field at the top, such as 2-5, and choose "The pages above".

  6. 6. Crop and download

    Press Crop PDF. The trimmed copy downloads with "-cropped" in its name, and a short note reports the number of pages trimmed.

No .pdf file to hand? Download a sample PDF file (6.3 KB) and try it.

Try it now

What Does It Mean to Crop a PDF?

Cropping sets a new visible area for each page. Anything outside that area is no longer shown on screen or printed, so the page looks smaller and its content appears larger when viewed.

The trimmed part is hidden rather than erased. That keeps the process quick and lossless, but it also means cropping is not a way to remove private details. For that job, use Redact PDF.

Cropped PDF

.PDF

The same pages with their empty or unwanted edges trimmed from view.

What people crop away

  • Scanner borders and shadows
  • Wide empty margins
  • Printer crop marks
  • Edges that waste phone screen space
  • Extra space around a chart
  • Background around a scanned receipt

Why Crop PDF Pages?

Empty edges push the content into a smaller part of the screen. Cropping them makes text bigger when you read on a phone or tablet, and it makes scans look clean and deliberate.

“Less border means more room for what you actually want to read.”
  • Larger text on small screens
  • Focus on the content
  • Tighter framing for charts
  • Even margins across pages
  • Cleaner-looking scans
  • Better fit on slides
  • No loss of sharpness
  • Faster than re-scanning

Popular Uses for Crop PDF

Here is what people most often trim.

  • Scanned documents Remove the grey edge and lid shadow a flatbed scanner leaves behind.
  • E-books and papers Cut wide margins so text is easier to read on a tablet.
  • Slides saved as PDF Trim the white space around slides before putting them in a report.
  • Charts and figures Keep only the graph from a page, ready to show on screen.
  • Print-ready files Hide the crop marks and bleed area from a printer’s proof.
  • Receipts and tickets Trim a scanned receipt down to the paper itself.
  • Application documents Tidy a scanned certificate before attaching it to a form.
  • Maps and plans Focus on the part of a large drawing that matters.

PDF Cropping Features

A visual crop with exact numbers behind it.

Visual

Drag on the real page

Eight handles and a movable frame over a picture of your own page.

Works with:

  • Mouse
  • Trackpad
  • Touch
  • Arrow keys
Automatic

Finds the blank border

Measures the empty edges on the page shown and sets the crop to match in one press.

Units

Millimetres, points or per cent

Enter exact amounts in the unit you think in, and the box follows.

Units:

  • mm
  • pt
  • %
Pages

Every page or a few

Crop the whole file, or only the pages listed in the Pages box.

Preview

Look through the pages

Previous and Next show other pages under the same crop, so you can check it fits them all.

Smart

Handles turned pages

Pages saved with a rotation are cropped on the side you see, not the side the file stores.

Why Use ToolXkit to Crop PDFs?

See before you cut

The shaded preview shows exactly what will be trimmed, so there are no surprises in the download.

Crop PDF for Different Users

Students

Trim scanned notes and textbook pages for easier reading.

Readers

Cut margins from e-books and journal papers for tablets.

Office staff

Tidy scanned letters and forms before filing them.

Designers

Hide crop marks and bleed from proofs sent to clients.

Presenters

Frame charts and slides tightly for a report.

Applicants

Clean up scanned certificates before uploading them.

Best Situations to Crop a PDF

Cropping helps most when you are:

  • Cleaning up a batch of scans
  • Reading a document on a phone
  • Loading papers onto an e-reader
  • Reusing a slide in a report
  • Removing printer marks from a proof
  • Pulling a chart out of a page
  • Preparing scans for an online form
  • Filing scanned receipts

Tips for a Clean PDF Crop

  1. Step through a few pages with Next before cropping every page. One page may have text closer to the edge than the rest.

  2. Border detection reads the page on screen only. Check it on a busy page before applying it to the whole file.

  3. Use millimetres when a form or printer gives you a measurement to hit.

  4. Leave a small margin around text if you will print. Content right at the edge can be cut by the printer.

  5. Cropped areas are hidden, not deleted. Use Redact PDF when the edge holds something private.

  6. For a document with one odd page, crop the main pages first, then load the cropped download and treat that page on its own.

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to common questions about this tool.

How can I get rid of the blank edges on my PDF pages?

Choose the file, wait a moment for the border check, then press "Trim the white border". The crop box snaps to the content. Keep "Every page" selected and press Crop PDF.

Is the cropped part deleted from the file?

No. Cropping hides the area outside the box from view and print, but it stays inside the file and some programs can reveal it. To permanently remove private text, use Redact PDF.

Can I crop just one page?

Yes. Type that page number in the Pages box at the top, choose "The pages above" under Apply to, and press Crop PDF. Other pages keep their full size.

Can I type an exact crop in millimetres?

Yes. Choose mm under Margins and fill in the four edge boxes. You can also work in points or percentages, and the box follows what you type.

My pages are different sizes. How are they cropped?

By the same proportion rather than the same millimetres. A crop of 10 per cent off the top removes 10 per cent from each page, whatever its size.

Does cropping reduce quality or file size?

Quality stays the same because nothing is redrawn. The file size stays about the same too, since the trimmed content is hidden rather than removed.

Can I crop a PDF on my phone?

Yes. The crop box has touch-friendly handles, so you can drag the edges with a finger. The margin boxes work on phones as well.

Why does it say no blank border was found?

The page shown has content, colour or a scan shadow running right to the edge. You can still drag the box or type margins yourself.

Will a scanned page that was saved sideways crop correctly?

Yes. The crop follows the page as you see it on screen, so trimming the top removes the top of what you are looking at.

Is my document uploaded?

No. The page picture and the new crop box are both calculated locally, and the PDF itself never travels over the network.

Is Crop PDF free to use?

Yes. Cropping is free for every file, there is no registration step, and the result shows only your own pages, trimmed the way you set them.

Can I change words that are already in the PDF?

These tools add to the page: text, numbers, stamps, borders, headers or watermarks. Rewording what is already printed on a PDF is not their job, so for heavy rewriting, edit the original document if you still have it.

Does Crop PDF leave a watermark of its own?

No. It is completely free, and the site adds no logo or mark of its own. The only marks on your pages are the ones you choose to put there.

Will Crop PDF work on a scanned PDF?

Yes. Additions such as page numbers, stamps, borders and watermarks are placed on top of each page, so they work on scans just as they do on typed documents.

Further reading

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