Does cropping permanently remove content?

PDF cropping sets a CropBox viewport — content outside is hidden but not deleted. To truly delete content, use the Redact tool.

How do I know how much to crop?

Check your page size in PDF viewer properties. A4 is 210x297mm. Enter mm values for each edge to trim. Start small and re-crop if needed.

Can I crop only some pages?

Currently crop applies to all pages. To crop specific pages, extract them, crop, then merge back with the rest using Merge PDF.

Does cropping affect file size?

Cropping only hides content via the CropBox — it does not delete data or significantly reduce file size. Use Compress or Optimize PDF to reduce size after cropping.

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Trim the margins of all PDF pages by specifying crop values in millimetres. Remove white borders, scanner edges, or unwanted margins. Free, no signup required.

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Complete Guide to Cropping PDF Pages

How PDF Cropping Works

PDF cropping works by adjusting the CropBox — a rectangular boundary defined within the PDF page structure that controls which portion of the page is visible when the document is displayed or printed. By reducing the CropBox dimensions, you effectively hide the unwanted margin areas from view.

An important technical detail: the content outside the CropBox is hidden but not permanently deleted from the file. The MediaBox (the full physical page boundary) still contains the original content. This means crop operations can be reversed by removing the CropBox. If you need to permanently delete content from page margins — for example, to remove sensitive information — use the Redact PDF tool instead.

Common Reasons to Crop a PDF

Remove scanner edges — scanned documents often include the dark shadow of the scanner lid edge or ruler markings around the page boundary
Trim excessive whitespace — PDFs exported from design software sometimes have very large blank margins that waste screen space
Remove printer crop marks — print-ready PDFs often include registration marks and crop marks in the margins that are not needed for distribution
Standardise page size — crop varying margin sizes to create a consistent page boundary across a multi-page document
Remove headers or footers — remove repeating header or footer content by cropping from the top or bottom of all pages

How to Determine Crop Values

The crop values are the amount (in millimetres) to remove from each edge of the page. To determine the right values:

Open the original PDF in any viewer and check the page dimensions under File → Properties or Document Properties
A standard A4 page is 210 × 297 mm; US Letter is 216 × 279 mm
If there is a 15 mm white border on all sides you want to remove, enter 15 in all four fields
Start conservative — enter a smaller value first, download, check, and re-crop with a larger value if needed
Asymmetric cropping is supported — you can remove different amounts from each edge independently

Cropping vs Other Page Editing Tools

Cropping changes the visible page boundary but does not alter page order, content, or file structure beyond the CropBox values. For other page editing tasks:

To delete entire pages, use Remove Pages
To keep only specific pages, use Extract Pages
To permanently remove content (not just hide it), use Redact PDF
To rotate pages, use Rotate PDF

Frequently Asked Questions

PDF cropping sets a CropBox — a viewport that controls what is visible. Content outside the CropBox is hidden but not permanently deleted. To truly delete content, use the Redact tool.

Check the page size in your PDF viewer under Document Properties. A standard A4 page is 210 × 297 mm. If there's a 10 mm white border on each side you want to remove, enter 10 in all four fields. Start small — you can always re-crop more.

Currently the crop applies to all pages uniformly. To crop specific pages, use Extract Pages to isolate those pages, crop them, then merge back with the rest using Merge PDF.

Since content outside the CropBox is only hidden (not deleted), cropping alone does not significantly reduce file size. To reduce file size after cropping, use the Compress or Optimize PDF tools.