Crop PDF
Drag a crop box straight onto the page preview to cut off white margins or unwanted edges. Apply it to one page or all of them.
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Don't take our word for it. Turn off your Wi‑Fi, then use this tool. It will work exactly the same, which is only possible because your file never goes anywhere.
Cropping, margins, and what stays in the file
Cropping changes the visible area of a page rather than its content. A PDF page carries a crop box that tells viewers which part to display, and cropping narrows it. The content outside remains in the file, hidden rather than deleted.
That distinction matters. Cropping is the right tool for tidying margins and it is the wrong tool for hiding sensitive information, because anyone can widen the crop box again. Removing content permanently is what redaction is for.
What cropping is good for
- Trimming the wide white margins on a scan so the text fills more of the screen — a real difference when reading on a phone.
- Removing the black edges a scanner adds around a smaller original.
- Cutting off a header or footer that repeats on every page.
- Squaring up a page that was scanned slightly off-centre.
Cropping and printing
A cropped page prints at its cropped size, which may no longer be A4 or Letter. Most printers scale to fit, so the result is usually slightly enlarged content on a standard sheet. For anything going to a print shop, say what page size you expect rather than assuming.
Related reading: what actually reduces a PDF's size.
Questions people ask
Is the cropped-off content deleted?
It's hidden by shrinking the visible page area, which is how the PDF format handles cropping. Use Redact if content must actually be destroyed.
Does cropping make the file smaller?
Barely. The hidden content is still stored, so the saving is negligible. To reduce size, compress the document.
Can I crop every page the same way at once?
Yes, and for scans that is usually what you want, since every page has the same margins. Pages that differ can be adjusted individually.
Can cropping be undone?
Yes. Because the content is only hidden, the crop can be widened again. Keeping your original file is still the safer habit.
How to use it
How-to guides · 21 August 2026 · 5 min
How to crop a PDF — and what cropping actually does
Cropping a PDF hides the margins rather than deleting them. That is worth knowing before you use it to cut something out of a document you are about to send.
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