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Crop a PDF

Trim the empty borders off a scan so the content fills the page — measured automatically, or by a fixed amount from each edge.

    How to crop a PDF

    1. Choose your PDF. Automatic is the default and handles most scans.
    2. Leave it on automatic to have each page measured, or switch to fixed amounts and set the four edges in millimetres.
    3. Press Crop the PDF and save the result. Your original is untouched.

    Finding the edge of the ink

    A scan almost always arrives with a white frame around it — the part of the glass your page did not cover, or the margin the original had. On a phone it wastes most of the screen, and in print it shrinks everything you actually wanted.

    Automatic mode renders each page, finds where the ink stops, and sets the visible area to that plus a few millimetres of breathing room. It measures the background from the page's own border rather than assuming white, so a grey or cream scan is trimmed to its content rather than left alone. Every page is measured separately, which matters when a document mixes portrait scans with landscape ones.

    Worth knowing, because most tools let you assume otherwise: cropping sets which part of the page is shown. It does not delete what falls outside. The trimmed-away area is still in the file and can be brought back by anyone who changes the crop box. If you are cropping to hide something rather than to tidy something, this is not the tool — nothing that keeps your file on your device can truly remove it, and nothing that claims to should be taken at its word.

    A page with nothing on it is left exactly as it was, since there is no ink to crop to. The result tells you how many of those it skipped.

    Questions about cropping

    Does cropping delete the parts outside the box?

    No. It sets which part of the page is displayed and printed. What falls outside is still in the file and can be restored by anyone who changes the crop box. Cropping tidies a document; it does not redact one.

    Why was one of my pages left uncropped?

    Either it was blank — there is no ink to crop to — or its content already reaches the edges, so there was nothing to trim. The result says how many pages were skipped.

    My scan has a grey background and nothing happened.

    It should still work: the background is measured from the page's own border rather than assumed to be white. If the border is very close in tone to the content, try fixed amounts instead and set the edges by hand.

    Will the text still be selectable?

    Yes. Cropping changes only the visible area; the page content is not re-rendered, so text stays text and links stay links.

    Is my PDF uploaded?

    No. The pages are measured and the crop boxes written by your browser, on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere.

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