Scanned documents come with wide black borders. Slides exported to PDF have empty margins. Sometimes you just want to zoom in on the useful part of a page. Cropping trims a PDF down to the region that matters — and you can do it visually in your browser.
Why crop a PDF?
- Remove scanner borders: Cut away black edges from scans
- Trim whitespace: Tighten oversized margins
- Focus content: Keep only the important region of each page
- Better printing: Fit content to the paper without excess margin
How it works
The Crop PDF tool renders the first page with pdf.js so you can draw a crop area on it. That area — as a proportion of the page — is then applied to every page via the PDF's crop box using pdf-lib. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Step-by-step
- Open the Crop PDF tool
- Drag and drop your PDF — the first page appears as a preview
- Drag on the preview to draw the area you want to keep
- Click Crop all pages & download
Cropping is non-destructive
The tool sets each page's crop box — the visible region — rather than deleting content. The material outside the crop stays inside the file and can be revealed again by removing the crop later. This is standard PDF behavior and keeps your original content safe.
Because it uses a single crop area applied proportionally, it works even when pages have slightly different sizes.
Tips for a clean crop
- Crop a representative page — pick page 1 if all pages share the same layout
- Leave a small margin so text isn't clipped at the edge
- For very different pages, crop sections separately and merge them
Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF uploaded? No. The preview and crop both run in your browser; your file never leaves your device.
Can I crop each page differently? This tool applies one crop area to all pages, which covers most needs. For per-page crops, split the PDF, crop each part, and merge.
Does cropping reduce file size much? Not significantly — the content is hidden, not removed. To shrink the file, follow up with the PDF Compressor.
Is it free? Yes — no account, no watermark, no limits.
Related tools
- Rotate PDF — rotate pages
- Organize PDF — reorder and delete pages
- Compress PDF — reduce file size