Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Crop PDF Online

Trim a uniform margin off every page — useful for cutting the wide white borders on scanned books or academic PDFs so the text fills an e-reader or tablet screen.

Secure & encrypted upload
How we protect your files
  • No sign-up, no watermark
  • Files encrypted and auto-deleted
  • No installation — runs right in your browser
  • Fast processing on desktop and mobile

Read our full guide: How to Crop a PDF Online (Trim Margins Without Losing Quality) →

How to use Crop PDF online

  1. 1

    Upload your files

    Drag and drop or click to select your file(s). Uploads go directly to encrypted cloud storage over HTTPS. (PDF)

  2. 2

    Run the tool: Crop PDF

    Processing happens instantly in the cloud — no software to install, works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.

  3. 3

    Download the result

    Get your processed file via a secure temporary link. All files are deleted automatically about a day after upload.

Frequently asked questions

How do I specify how much to trim?

As a margin in points, taken off all four sides of every page. 72 points equals one inch, so 36 trims half an inch all round; the default is 20. There's no per-side or per-page control — it's one uniform trim.

Is cropped content deleted or just hidden?

Hidden. Cropping sets each page's crop box, which tells viewers what region to display, while the full page content remains in the file. That means it's reversible, but it also means cropping is not a way to remove sensitive content from the margins — use Redact PDF for that.

What happens if I trim too much?

The operation is rejected rather than producing an unreadable file: if twice the margin would meet or exceed the page's shorter dimension, you get an error saying that margin would remove the entire page. Re-run with a smaller value.

Why crop a PDF for an e-reader?

Scanned books and journal articles usually carry generous print margins that waste most of a 6-inch screen. Trimming them lets the reader zoom the actual text to fill the display, which is the single biggest readability win on small devices.

Will cropping make the file smaller?

No. Cropping sets the region viewers display, while the full page content stays in the file, so the size is essentially unchanged. Crop for readability, and run Compress PDF separately when the goal is a smaller file.

Commonly used with this tool