Crop PDF Pages to Remove Empty Margins
Trimming PDF margins by exact measurements
Crop PDF page margins by entering top, right, bottom and left measurements in mm, cm, inches or points. Apply the crop to the chosen pages and check that text and page numbers remain visible. PDF cropping changes the visible page area and is not a secure way to redact hidden information. Use it for framing and print layout rather than removing confidential content.
Cost: Free to use. File size and usage limits apply.
How to crop PDF pages
Add your PDF
Drop a PDF onto the preview area or click Choose PDF. One file of up to 200 MB is cropped per job. A PDF you already uploaded in another PDF tool can be picked from Uploads.
Choose the pages
Leave Pages to crop (optional) empty to crop every page, or enter pages and ranges such as
1-3,5. Pages you don't list keep their full size.Set the unit and the four margins
Unit starts at
mm, and Top, Right, Bottom and Left each start at10. If you click Crop PDF without changing anything, 10 mm disappear from every edge.Crop and inspect the result
Click Crop PDF. When the job is done, the preview switches to the cropped file. Page through it and check that page numbers, headers and footnotes are still visible.
Adjust or download
To change the crop, edit the values and click Crop PDF again. Then click Download cropped PDF. The result also stays in Uploads for other PDF tools.
Settings explained
- Pages to crop (optional)
- Empty means all pages. Separate single pages and ranges with commas, for example
2,4,6or1-3,5. Ranges must run from low to high; open ranges such as5-and pages beyond the end of the document are rejected. - Unit
mm(default),cm,infor inches orptfor points. One inch is 25.4 mm or 72 pt, so 1 pt is about 0.35 mm. All four margins are measured in the unit selected here, so pick the unit you measured in before entering the values.- Top, Right, Bottom, Left
- How much to hide, measured inward from each edge in the chosen unit. Any value from
0upward is allowed, decimals such as12.5included;0leaves that edge untouched. Negative values are not accepted, so the tool can hide edges but cannot add white space. Top plus Bottom must stay below the page height and Left plus Right below the page width. Every selected page loses the same distance, even when pages differ in size.
What happens to the part you crop away
A PDF page has a media box, the full sheet as stored in the file, and an optional crop box, the area that viewers display and print. This tool writes a new crop box for the selected pages and leaves the page content alone. Text, images and vector graphics are not re-rendered, so nothing loses quality.
Margins are always measured from the edge of the media box, not from an earlier crop. Cropping a file twice with 10 mm gives the same result as cropping it once; to hide 5 mm more, enter 15. For the same reason, running a file cropped here through the tool again with all four margins at 0 brings back the full page.
Example: working out margins for A4 and Letter
An A4 page measures 210 × 297 mm (595 × 842 pt); US Letter is 8.5 × 11 in (612 × 792 pt). PDF Info lists the page size of your file in points, which is the full page the margins are measured from.
Say the text on an A4 scan starts about 25 mm below the top edge, ends 30 mm above the bottom and has 20 mm of blank space on each side. Leave a few millimetres of air so nothing touches the new edge: Top 20, Bottom 25, Left 15, Right 15. The visible page becomes 180 × 252 mm.
On a Letter page in points, Top and Bottom at 54 (0.75 in) plus Left and Right at 36 (0.5 in) leave 540 × 684 pt, or 7.5 × 9.5 in. When in doubt, start low, crop, check the result in the preview and raise the values until the white space is gone.
Formats and limits
- Input format
- Output format
- One PDF with the same pages in the same order
- Maximum file size
- 200 MB
- Files per job
- 1 PDF
- Password-protected PDFs
- PDFs that ask for a password when opened cannot be cropped; if you know the password, remove it first with Unlock PDF. PDFs that only restrict editing or printing work.
- Document properties
- The title and other document properties are kept; the Producer entry is updated.
- Processing
- On our servers with the pdfcpu PDF library. A job can run for up to 15 minutes.
- Watermark
- None
- Storage
- Uploads and results are deleted automatically after 48 hours for guests and after 30 days for free accounts. Paid plans can keep files longer.
Frequently asked questions
Is the cropped-off area deleted from the file?
No, it is only hidden. Text-extraction tools can still read text in the hidden area, and a PDF editor can reset the crop box to show it again. Don't rely on cropping to remove confidential details.
Why is the cropped PDF about the same size as the original?
The text and images outside the visible area remain in the file. Rewriting the PDF can change its byte size according to the original structure, but hiding margins does not remove their content. Compress PDF offers a separate structural optimization; compare the actual file sizes.
Which unit should I use?
The one you measured in. Millimetres suit A4 and other metric paper, inches suit US Letter, and points match the page sizes that PDF Info reports. The result is the same whichever unit you choose, as long as the values describe the same distance.
Do the margins follow rotated pages?
Yes. Top, Right, Bottom and Left refer to the edges as you see the page in the preview, also on pages turned with Rotate PDF or by a scanner.
Can I use different margins for different pages?
Yes, in several runs. Crop the first group of pages, then select the cropped file under Uploads and crop the next group with new values. A second crop of the original upload would not include the first group's crop.