Crop PDF

Drag a box to keep only what you need, type exact margins, or trim the white border automatically. Everything happens in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

Drop a PDF to crop

or click to choose a file

.pdf files · processed in your browser

100% in your browser
No upload, no signup
No page or size limit
Files never leave your device

Why PDFs end up needing a crop

Most cropping starts with a scanner. A book scanned flat leaves a dark gutter down one side and an inch of desk around the rest. A phone photo converted to PDF carries whatever was on the table. A slide deck exported to PDF sits in the middle of a page with a thick white border on every side, which wastes half the screen when someone reads it on a phone.

The other half starts with something on the page that should not go any further. A header with an internal reference number. An address in the footer. A signature at the bottom of a scanned form. People crop those off before sending the file on, and reasonably assume that cropping removes them.

Those two motivations want different things from a cropping tool, and almost no tool distinguishes between them. Trimming a margin for looks and trimming a margin to hide information are the same gesture with very different requirements — which is what the next section is about.

What cropping a PDF actually changes

Cropping a PDF sets a smaller visible region for a page. It changes what a reader displays — it does not, by itself, remove anything from the file.

Every PDF page carries a box called the crop box that says which part of the page to show. Setting a smaller one is why cropping is instant and why it costs nothing in quality: the page is not redrawn or recompressed, the text stays text, forms stay fillable, and links keep working. All that changes is the window the reader looks through.

The consequence is the part worth knowing. The content outside that window is still in the file. It can still be found by a search, still copied out by software, and still displayed by anyone who sets the crop box back to the full page — which takes one line of code and no special tools.

We checked this rather than assuming it. Take a page with a line of text near the bottom edge, crop the bottom off, and the text disappears from the page and from anything reading the text layer. Set the crop box back to the full page, and the line returns exactly as it was. Nothing about the file resisted that.

So if you are cropping for looks — trimming scanner margins, tightening a slide — the ordinary crop is exactly right, and it is the option this tool defaults to. If you are cropping to take something off the page before sending it on, you need the second option, which rebuilds the pages so the trimmed area genuinely is not there.

The crop box says which part of the page to show. The rest of the page is still there, underneath.

How to crop a PDF

Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded. There are three ways to set the crop, and they all edit the same box — use whichever suits what you are doing.

Three ways to set the same box — use whichever suits the device you are on.

Open your PDF

Drag the file onto the box above, or tap it to choose a file. The first page appears large enough to work on, with a crop box over it. If the document has several pages, the numbered strip underneath moves between them.

Drag the box, or type the numbers

On a computer, drag inside the box to move it and pull the handles to resize it. On a phone, the same handles have large touch targets and a readout follows your finger, because your hand covers the corner you are dragging. From the keyboard, tab to a handle and use the arrow keys — one millimetre a press, ten with Shift held. The four number fields beside the page always show exactly where the box is, and you can type into them instead.

Or let it find the margins

Trim white margins looks at the page, finds where the content actually starts and stops, and pulls the box in to meet it with a little breathing room. It measures against the page's own background, so an off-white scan works as well as a clean white one. You can adjust the result afterwards like any other crop.

Choose which pages

All pages, only the page you are looking at, or a range like 3-7, 12. Pages you do not select keep their current size.

Choose what happens to the trimmed area, then crop

Keep the default to change what the page shows — instant, lossless, and reversible. Choose to remove the trimmed area for good if it contains something that should not travel with the file; the pages become images, so their text stops being selectable. The file downloads when it is ready, and your original is untouched either way.

Related: If whole pages need to go rather than their edges, use delete pages from a PDF.

What this PDF cropper does

The crop box can be set three ways and they stay in sync: drag it, type exact margins in millimetres, points or inches, or let the tool find the content edges. Whichever you use, the other two update, so you can rough it out by dragging and then round the numbers off by typing. The area outside the box is dimmed rather than hidden while you work, which keeps the trimmed content visible — a small reminder that it has not gone anywhere yet.

Automatic trimming is the part most tools leave out, and it is the one that handles the common case. It measures the page's blank border against the page's own background colour rather than against pure white, which is what makes it work on scans that have gone slightly yellow. If a page is filled edge to edge it says so instead of applying a crop of zero.

Cropping applies to all pages, one page, or a range you type. Different pages can be different sizes and the margins are applied to each page's own dimensions, so a document that mixes portrait and landscape does not come out lopsided. Pages that carry a rotation are handled in the orientation you are looking at — trimming the top of a sideways page trims the top of what you see, not the top of how it happens to be stored.

Automatic trimming finds the edge of the content and pulls the box in to meet it.

What people actually use it for:

Cutting the scanner's desk and shadow off a book scan
Removing the wide white border a slide deck leaves on every page
Making a document readable on a phone by trimming dead margin
Straightening up the edges of a photographed document
Taking a header or footer off before sending a file on — with the remove option, not the ordinary crop
Standardising the margins across a set of scanned pages

Works wherever you already are

Because the work happens inside the browser rather than on a server, there is nothing to install and no account to create. The same page works on every system with a current browser.

§ 01

Android and iPhone

Built for it rather than adapted to it. The crop handles have finger-sized touch targets, the page fills the screen, and the measurements follow your finger so your hand is not covering the number you need to see.

§ 02

Windows

Works in Edge, Chrome and Firefox with no download and no admin rights — useful on a machine where you cannot install software.

§ 03

macOS

Works in Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Preview can crop too, though it hides rather than removes in exactly the way described above.

§ 04

Chromebook

A natural fit, since everything is already browser-based. Files open straight from Downloads or Google Drive once they are saved locally.

§ 05

Linux

Runs in any modern browser, with no package to install and no dependency to resolve.

§ 06

Tablets

The best screen for this job: a large page to work on and enough room for the crop box and the measurements side by side.

Hiding, removing and redacting are three different things

This is the part no other cropping tool explains, and it matters most to exactly the people least likely to know it. All three make content stop appearing on the page. Only two of them make it stop being in the file, and only one of them is meant for information that must not leak.

Cropping hides the trimmed area; removing it takes it out of the file. The difference only shows when someone tries to get it back.

Cropping (the default here)

Sets a smaller visible region. Instant, lossless, reversible: text stays text, forms stay fillable, and the file barely changes size. The trimmed area is still in the document and comes back the moment someone resets the crop box. Right for margins, scanner edges and layout — wrong for anything you need gone.

Removing for good (the second option)

Rebuilds each page from an image of the cropped region, so what fell outside is not in the file at all. The trade is the text layer: pages become pictures, so the text can no longer be selected, searched or read aloud, and the file usually gets larger. Right when the trimmed area contains something that should not travel with the document.

Redaction

Removes specific content from inside a page — a name, a number, an account — and is what regulated work requires, usually with an audit trail. It is not what a cropping tool does, and this page does not offer it. If you are working under an obligation to redact, use software built for that and verify the result.

How to check any cropping tool, including this one

Crop a page, download the file, then open it and copy all the text — most readers can do this from the Edit menu. If text you thought you removed comes back in the clipboard, it was hidden rather than removed. That test takes half a minute and is worth running on whatever tool you use before you rely on it.

Your document stays on your device

Cropping is often the last thing someone does before sending a file to somebody else, and often the reason is that the page contains more than the recipient should see. Uploading the whole document to a stranger's server first is a strange way to begin, but it is what every other tool for this asks of you.

This page does not. Your PDF is opened, cropped and saved by your own browser. Nothing is transmitted, so there is no copy on our side to delete, no retention window to trust and nothing to intercept in transit. You can confirm it: load the page, disconnect from the network, and crop a document anyway — it still works.

One thing that not uploading does not fix, and we would rather say it twice than once: an ordinary crop still leaves the trimmed content inside the file you download. Keeping the file off our servers protects it from us; choosing the remove option is what protects it from whoever you send it to.

§ 01

Nothing is uploaded

The file is read by this browser tab and never sent to a server. No account, no email address, no sign-up.

§ 02

The original is untouched

Cropping never modifies your source file. The cropped version arrives as a new download, and the document you started with keeps its full pages.

§ 03

No limits to work around

No cap on pages, no daily quota, no watermark. What limits very large documents is your device's memory, not a paywall.

Questions about cropping PDFs

How do I crop a PDF?⌄

Open the PDF in the tool above and a crop box appears over the first page. Drag the box or its handles, type exact margins into the four fields, or press Trim white margins to have the edges found for you. Choose whether it applies to all pages, one page or a range, then press Crop PDF. The new file downloads and your original is untouched. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded.

How do I crop a PDF document to an exact size?⌄

Use the four margin fields rather than dragging. They accept millimetres, points or inches, and the crop box moves as you type, so you can see what the numbers mean. The readout under the fields shows the resulting page size, which is what to check if you are matching a specific format.

Does cropping actually delete the content outside the box?⌄

Not by default, and this is the single most important thing to know about cropping any PDF. The ordinary crop sets a smaller visible region — the content outside it stays in the file, and a reader that ignores the crop box, or anyone who resets it, sees all of it again. If you need the trimmed area gone, choose Remove the trimmed area for good, which rebuilds the pages so it genuinely is not there.

Can someone recover what I cropped off?⌄

After an ordinary crop, yes, easily. The crop box is just a number in the file; setting it back to the full page brings everything back exactly as it was, and the trimmed text can be found by a search or copied out without even doing that. After choosing to remove the trimmed area, no — the pages are rebuilt from the cropped region only, and what fell outside it was never written into the new file.

How do I permanently remove the cropped-away area?⌄

Pick the second output option before you press Crop. Each page is rebuilt from an image of the region you kept, so nothing outside it is written into the file. The cost is that the pages become images: the text is no longer selectable, searchable or readable by a screen reader, and the file is usually larger. That is a real trade, which is why it is not the default.

Can I crop all pages at once, or just one?⌄

Both. Apply to controls it: all pages, only the page you are looking at, or a range you type such as 3-7, 12. The margins are applied to each page's own size, so a document mixing page sizes or orientations still comes out sensibly.

How do I remove white margins automatically?⌄

Press Trim white margins. It examines the rendered page, finds where the content actually begins and ends, and pulls the crop box in to meet it with a small margin left over. It compares against the page's own background rather than pure white, so scans that have yellowed still work. If a page has no blank border it tells you instead of doing nothing.

Does cropping reduce the file size?⌄

Hardly at all with an ordinary crop, and that is the giveaway: the content is still in there. The remove option usually makes the file larger rather than smaller, because pages that were text become images. If size is what you are after, compressing the PDF is the tool you want.

Will cropping blur the text or images?⌄

An ordinary crop changes nothing on the page — nothing is re-encoded, so text stays sharp at any zoom. The remove option renders the pages, so they become images at a fixed resolution; it is rendered at twice the page size to keep small text readable, but it is no longer infinitely sharp.

Are my files uploaded to a server?⌄

No. The document is opened and the cropped file is built by your browser on your own device. Nothing is transmitted to us, which means there is no copy of your file to store, log or delete. If you want to verify it, disconnect from the internet after the page has loaded — the tool keeps working.

What if my PDF is password protected or restricted?⌄

It depends which kind of protection it has. A file that merely restricts printing or copying can still be read, so this tool lifts those restrictions automatically — it has to, in order to write the cropped file — and tells you it has done so. A file that needs a password to open cannot be read at all until it is unlocked, so we point you to the unlock tool rather than asking you for a password here.

Can I crop a PDF on my phone?⌄

Yes, and it is designed for it. The crop handles have touch targets far larger than they look, the measurements follow your finger so your hand does not hide them, and the numeric fields are there when a drag is too fiddly. The finished file saves to your phone's downloads like any other.

Crop your PDF to what matters

Free, unlimited and processed entirely in your browser — and honest about the difference between hiding a margin and removing it.

Crop a PDF

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