Crop PDF and Trim Margins
Drag a box, pick a margin preset or let auto crop find the content, then trim the margins of every page.
Select a PDF fileor drop it anywhere on this page, or paste
Opens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Crop PDF and Trim Margins, free and private
Crop a PDF or trim its margins online for free. Let auto crop find the content and cut the white margins, or drag a box over the part of the page you want to keep. Use it to remove wide white borders from a scan, cut off a letterhead or footer, or keep only one chart or table.
Trimmed pages are easier to read on a phone or e-reader and print with less wasted paper. The crop runs in your browser, so the PDF is never uploaded.
How to crop or trim a PDF
- 1
Add your PDF
Press Select PDF files or drop a PDF onto the page. The first page appears as a preview, and the arrows under it flip through the other pages.
- 2
Choose a crop mode
Under Crop mode, pick Auto crop white margins to trim the empty border for you, or Drag a box to mark the area yourself.
- 3
Set the crop
In auto mode, pick Same crop on all pages or Crop each page to its content. With Drag a box, drag the box or its eight handles over the content to keep, drag a new box, or type the trim for each edge in millimetres. Trim 5% margins and Trim 10% margins set a quick box, and Reset starts over. Under Apply to, pick all, odd or even pages or type a range.
- 4
Crop and download
Press Crop PDF. The result says how many pages were trimmed. Open Preview to check it, then press Download PDF. The new file name ends in -cropped.
Why use PDFToolz for this
Auto crop white margins
The tool renders each page, finds where the content starts and ends, and keeps an 8 pt border (about 2.8 mm) around it. Blank pages are left as they are.
Crop on a live preview
You see your own pages while you drag and resize the box, so you know what stays before anything changes. Exact values can be typed in millimetres too.
No quality loss
Cropping changes only the visible area of each page. Nothing is turned into an image, so text stays selectable and searchable and images keep their resolution.
Same result in every viewer
The tool sets both the crop box and the media box of each page. The trimmed page looks and prints the same in Adobe Acrobat, in browsers and on phones.
Free, and the file stays on your device
No account, watermark or page limit. The PDF is cropped in your browser and is never sent to a server.
How to auto crop a PDF
Pick Auto crop white margins and choose how the pages are trimmed:
- Same crop on all pages uses one box that covers the content of every page. All pages keep the same size, which suits books, reports and anything you will print.
- Crop each page to its content trims every page on its own. Pages can end up with different sizes, which suits reading on a screen or cutting out figures.
How to trim PDF margins by hand
The two presets cut a fixed share off every edge. Trim 5% margins removes 5% of the width from the left and right, and 5% of the height from the top and bottom. On an A4 page that is about 10.5 mm at each side and 14.9 mm at the top and bottom. Trim 10% margins doubles it, to about 21 mm and 29.7 mm.
Drag your own box when the margins are uneven, such as an off-centre scan or a book page with a wide gutter on one side. The box is stored as a share of the page, so every other page is trimmed to the same relative area. The millimetre values are measured on the page on show.
When auto crop trims too little
Auto crop treats anything that isn't near-white as content. A grey scanner edge, a page shadow, a coloured background or a stray mark near the border all count. In those cases switch to Drag a box and mark the area yourself.
Rotated pages and pages that were already cropped are trimmed where the preview shows. In a mixed document, flip to pages with a different size or orientation from page 1 to check them.
Crop PDF, Resize PDF Pages or Redact PDF?
Crop PDF keeps the content at its original scale and cuts the page down, so the output pages are smaller than the originals. Resize PDF Pages changes every page to A4, Letter, Legal or a custom size and scales the content to fit. You can use both. Trim the empty margins here first, then use Resize PDF Pages with Fit to scale the trimmed content back up onto an A4 sheet.
Cropping hides content but does not delete it. The trimmed area does not show or print, but the page data is still in the file, and a PDF editor can bring it back. For the same reason, cropping barely changes the file size. If you are trimming away something private, such as an account number in a footer, use Redact PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Add the PDF, pick Auto crop white margins or drag a box over the area you want to keep, and press Crop PDF. Then press Download PDF.
Pick Auto crop white margins and press Crop PDF. The tool finds the content on each page and trims the empty border, keeping 8 pt around it. For a fixed border, use Trim 5% margins or Trim 10% margins.
Auto crop can. Pick Crop each page to its content and every page is trimmed to its own content. A box you drag applies to all chosen pages, so use Apply to for odd, even or a range of pages, and run the tool again on the result for other pages.
Yes. Auto crop white margins renders each page, finds the content and trims the white space around it. Blank pages are left as they are.
No. It is hidden in every viewer and does not print, but the data stays in the file and a PDF editor could restore it. To remove private content for good, use Redact PDF.
Neither. Nothing is re-rendered, so text and images keep their quality. The file size also stays about the same. Use Compress PDF if you need a smaller file.
It is free, with no sign-up, watermark or page limit. The crop runs on your device, so the PDF never leaves it.
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