Scanned documents rarely come out neat. There's a dark band down one side from the scanner lid, a strip of the table at the bottom, or a wide white margin that makes the text look tiny when you read it on a phone. Crop PDF trims all of that away. You set the margin to remove from each side, see exactly what will go on a live preview, and download a new file. Nothing is uploaded: the cropping happens in your browser.
How to crop a PDF
- Open your PDF. The first page appears with a dark overlay on the area that will be removed.
- Enter how many millimeters to trim from the top, bottom, left and right, or press Trim 5 mm or Trim 10 mm for an even border.
- Use the arrows above the page to check other pages; the same margins apply to all of them.
- If only some pages need cropping, type them in the box, for example
1-3, 7. - Click Crop & download.
The tool shows the new page size in millimeters as you type, and warns you if the margins are so big that nothing would be left.
What cropping really does
Cropping sets the visible area of each page. The pages are not re-drawn or re-compressed, so text stays sharp and selectable and the quality is exactly the same. The new page is simply smaller, with the edges gone. It's also reversible in principle only if you keep the original, so keep your uncropped file somewhere safe, particularly for documents that matter.
Why people crop PDFs
- Reading on a phone. A PDF with 3 cm margins wastes a lot of screen. Trimming 15 mm from each side makes the text noticeably larger without zooming.
- Removing scanner shadows and borders from the edges of scanned pages.
- Cutting off headers or footers you don't want in a shared extract, such as a printed web address or an internal reference number.
- Preparing pages for printing on a different paper size, or for a booklet.
- Making a clean thumbnail before turning the page into an image.
A worked example
You've scanned a 12-page contract. Every page has a grey line down the left where the paper wasn't flat, and about a centimeter of scanner bed along the bottom. Set Left to 8 mm and Bottom to 10 mm, leave the other sides at 0, check pages 1, 6 and 12 in the preview, and download. The new file reads better, prints cleaner and looks much more professional when emailed. It also compresses better, because the dark band that used to take up space is gone.
Does it work on rotated pages?
Yes. Margins are measured on the page as you see it, not as it's stored. If a page in the file is sideways, the "top" you set is the top you see in the preview. That avoids the confusion that happens in some tools, where trimming the left of a sideways page removes the bottom. If a few pages are the wrong way around, rotate them first, then crop everything in one go.
Crop, then resize or compress
Cropping changes the page size, which sometimes leaves you with an unusual size. If the result needs to be a standard size such as A4 for printing or a portal, run it through Resize PDF, which scales the cropped pages to fit. If the file is still large, Compress PDF shrinks it further, and converting scans to black and white can save even more. For text-only needs, PDF to Text is a better route than cropping.
Cropping is not redaction
One caution: cropping hides the edges of a page but doesn't always remove the content, depending on how a PDF reader handles the file, and someone with the right tools can sometimes recover cropped material. If the part you're removing contains something confidential, such as a name or account number, don't rely on cropping. Use Redact PDF, which replaces the page with a picture that really has the information burned out.
Tips for a good result
Start with small margins and look at the preview before increasing them; it's easy to cut into the text. Check more than one page, because scans often shift slightly from sheet to sheet. Keep a few millimeters of white around the text instead of cropping tight, for a comfortable look and a safer print. And remember your browser does the work: for documents with hundreds of pages, give it a moment, and on a phone consider cropping in two parts.
Troubleshooting
If the preview shows the wrong area, check that you've entered millimeters, not centimeters: 10 means one centimeter. If the result looks too tight, reduce the margins and try again; the original is never changed. If some pages need different margins from others, crop them in two passes with the page box, then merge the parts in the right order. And if the file is password-protected, unlock it in your PDF reader before you open it here.
If you want to share just one cropped page as a picture, for a social post or a slide, finish with PDF to JPG after cropping, and you'll get a clean image with no borders.