PDF crop tool
PDF crop tool
Trim a fixed margin off the pages of a PDF by setting the crop box, with the new page size reported before you download.
How this is calculated
Each margin in millimetres is converted to points at 72 points to the inch and 25.4 mm to the inch, then added to the lower corner and subtracted from the upper corner of the existing box. A crop that would leave nothing is refused.
- A crop box hides content; it does not delete it. The trimmed text and images are still inside the file and can be revealed again by anyone who resets the box. Do not use cropping to remove confidential material.
- The media box — the sheet the printer sees — is left alone unless you choose it. Cropping only the crop box changes what a viewer shows, not what some print drivers output.
- A PDF that already has a password cannot be opened here. Remove it first with the PDF password protector, which asks for the password you already know.
- Your file is read by this page in your own browser. It is never uploaded, never stored on this server and never sent to anyone. Closing the tab clears it, and the download link is released as soon as you run the tool again.
Trim a margin off the pages of a PDF by setting the crop box, with the new page size in millimetres reported before you download.
Hiding, not deleting
A crop box tells a viewer where the visible part of the page ends. The words and images are still in the file, just outside the visible area, and anyone who resets the box — or opens the file in an editor that ignores it — sees them again. Cropping a confidential footer is therefore not redaction.
If content must actually go it has to be removed and the file rewritten, which is a different job and one this page does not do. What crop is good for is presentation: trimming a wide scan, removing a scanner’s border, making pages uniform before a merge.
Two boxes, two audiences
The crop box is what a viewer shows. The media box is the sheet a printer sees. They are often identical and occasionally not, which is why a page can look like A4 on screen and print differently. Set the crop box to change the view; set the media box only when the printed sheet itself must change.
Margins are entered in millimetres and converted at 72 points to the inch. A crop that would leave no visible area — a top and bottom trim larger than the page — is refused rather than producing an empty page.
Questions readers ask
Can I crop one page differently from another?
Not in one run. Use the pages box for a set that needs the same trim, or crop in several passes.
Will cropping shrink the file?
Barely. Nothing is removed, so the bytes stay. The saving is in the display, not the file size.
Why does the crop look wrong in one viewer?
Because viewers treat the crop box and page rotation differently. Check the result in the application you will actually print or send from.
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