Softonic

PDF Crop

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A scanned document often arrives with fat white margins, a dark border from the scanner lid, or a repeated header and footer that wastes space when you read on a phone. This tool trims a set amount from each edge of the page. You choose how many points to remove from the top, right, bottom and left, and the same crop is applied to every page, producing a new PDF.

How to crop a PDF

  1. 1

    Upload the PDF

    Any document. The same margins are applied to every page.

  2. 2

    Set the margins to trim

    Points to remove from each edge. 1 inch = 72 pt, 1 cm is about 28 pt.

  3. 3

    Crop the pages

    The chosen crop is applied to every page at once.

  4. 4

    Download

    A new cropped PDF is saved; the original is not modified.

What cropping actually does in a PDF

A PDF page defines several rectangles:

Box Meaning
MediaBox The full physical page size (e.g. A4 or US Letter)
CropBox The visible region, what viewers and printers render
BleedBox The print-bleed area beyond the trim
TrimBox The final trimmed page after printing
ArtBox The meaningful content area

This tool trims the CropBox. The original content stays in the file; viewers simply render only the region inside the new crop. Most readers respect the CropBox correctly. Because the content is not deleted, the file size stays about the same, and any text you crop off is still there for search and copy-paste.

Margins are measured in points

The four values are in PostScript points, the PDF unit:

  • 72 pt = 1 inch
  • 28.35 pt is about 1 cm
  • A standard A4 page is 595 x 842 pt; US Letter is 612 x 792 pt.

So to trim roughly 1 cm from every edge, set each side to about 28; for half an inch, use 36.

Common crop scenarios

  • Scanner margins. A flatbed scan often has 1-2 cm of white or dark edge. Trim it down to the content.
  • Printed-edge artefacts. Trim a few points from each edge to drop dust, smudges or torn edges.
  • Reader-friendly output. Trim generous book margins so the text fills a phone screen.
  • Cutting a repeated header or footer. If every page carries a banner you do not need, trim it off the top or bottom.

Good to know

  • The same crop applies to every page. If your PDF mixes landscape and portrait pages, a single set of margins will not fit both equally, so check the result on both.
  • Do not trim too close to the text. Leave a little breathing room around the content for comfortable reading.
  • The crop is non-destructive. It changes the CropBox rather than deleting content, so the file size stays roughly the same. If you need the hidden content truly gone, use a destructive-crop or print-to-PDF tool afterwards.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. This tool adjusts the CropBox, so viewers hide the trimmed area but the original content stays in the file. To delete the hidden content entirely and reduce file size, use a destructive-crop or print-to-PDF step afterwards.

Because the CropBox only affects display, not the underlying content. If you open the cropped PDF in an editor that shows the full MediaBox, the trimmed text returns. Use a destructive crop or print-to-PDF to remove it permanently.

No. The same margins are applied to every page. For a document that mixes orientations or page sizes, crop it in separate passes, or split out the pages that need a different crop first.

No. The text content is preserved regardless of the CropBox, so a searchable PDF stays searchable after cropping. Even text that sits outside the crop region remains in the document for search unless you later apply a destructive crop.

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