Crop PDF
Crop PDF pages by trimming a set margin from all four sides at once. Choose the trim in points with a slider (72 points equals one inch), and the same crop box is applied to every page.
Trim the margins of every page.
How to use Crop PDF
- Open the PDF with wide margins to trim
- Set how much to cut from all four sides
- Download the tightened PDF with margins removed
About Crop PDF
Crop PDF trims a uniform margin from all four edges of every page in a document, so you can cut away wide white borders and tighten the layout. To crop a PDF, you load the file, set how many points to trim, and press Crop — the same amount comes off the top, bottom, left, and right of every page at once. That makes it handy for scans that came out with a lot of empty space around the text, or for reading a report on a small phone screen or e-reader where fat margins waste room.
Other ways to crop a PDF want more from you: Adobe Acrobat's Crop Pages tool needs the paid app, Preview on a Mac makes you drag a selection page by page, and upload sites send your file to a server first. This tool skips all of that. It runs in the browser on any operating system, needs no account or install, adds no watermark, and has no usage limits, so it works as a quick free alternative when you would otherwise reach for iLovePDF or Acrobat.
Because it uses pdf-lib and works entirely on your own device, the PDF is never uploaded anywhere — it only sets each page's crop box, leaving the underlying text and images in place, and the file you started with is left untouched.
Frequently asked questions
- How much is 36 points?
- Points are the PDF unit: 72 points is one inch, or 25.4 mm. The default 36 pt trims half an inch (about 12.7 mm) from each side, and the slider runs from 0 to 144 pt — two inches — in 6-point steps.
- Can I trim one side only, or crop pages differently?
- No. A single value is applied to all four sides of every page, which is what keeps a scanned book or a long report looking consistent. Uneven margins, such as a wide inside gutter, cannot be handled here.
- Is there a preview of the crop?
- Not a visual one. The tool shows the file name and page count, you set the margin and press Crop PDF, then check the downloaded copy. The file you loaded is never modified, so you can move the slider and crop again as many times as you like.
- Does cropping delete the trimmed content?
- No. It sets each page's crop box, which changes what viewers and printers show. Text or images beyond the new boundary usually still exist inside the file and can be recovered by resetting the crop box, so never use this to hide sensitive information near a page edge.
- Will it make the file smaller?
- Barely. Only the visible page boundary changes — images are not downsampled and nothing is re-compressed, so the file size stays close to the original.
- What happens if the margin is bigger than the page?
- The trim is clamped per page, never removing more than just under half of the shorter side, so a small page or a label-sized PDF still ends up with a visible area instead of nothing. Setting the slider to 0 does nothing and shows a message asking for a margin above zero.
- Does the text stay selectable, with links and form fields intact?
- Yes. The page contents are written back out unchanged and only the crop box differs, so text stays real, searchable text. Anything that sat inside the trimmed margin — a page number, a note in the corner — is now outside the visible area rather than removed.
- It says my PDF cannot be read — why?
- That message appears when pdf-lib cannot open the file, which almost always means it is password-protected or damaged. Remove the password in the app that produced it, or repair the file, then try again.
- How do you crop a PDF?
- Choose your PDF, move the slider to the number of points you want to trim, and press Crop PDF to download a copy with that margin removed from all four edges of every page. There is nothing to sign up for, and the original file stays untouched so you can adjust the amount and crop again.
- Can you crop a PDF for free online?
- Yes. This tool crops PDFs at no cost, with no account, no watermark, and no page or file-size limits. The work happens in your browser, so you are not paying for or installing any desktop software.
- How do I crop a PDF in Adobe Acrobat, and can I do it here instead?
- Acrobat Pro has a Crop Pages tool where you draw a rectangle or type margin values, but it needs the paid app. If all you want is to trim even margins off every page, you can do that here for free without opening Acrobat.
- How do I crop a PDF on a Mac?
- Preview lets you drag a rectangular selection and choose Tools then Crop, though it works one page or selection at a time. This tool runs in any browser on a Mac and trims the same margin from all four sides of every page in one step, with no app to open.
- Is this a free alternative to iLovePDF for cropping PDFs?
- Yes. Like iLovePDF's crop tool it trims your PDF's margins, but the file is processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded to a server. That makes it a good pick when you would rather not send a document to an online service.