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Crop PDF
Crop PDF trims margins from your pages by setting a new media box for each sheet. It is the quickest way to remove wide white borders, scanner edges and unneeded header or footer bands, and it works on scans and digital documents alike.
How to use Crop PDF
- Upload the PDF whose margins you want to reduce.
- Enter the crop values for top, right, bottom and left in points, or use the preset ratios.
- Apply the crop and download the trimmed document.
Where Crop PDF is useful
- Removing the grey scanner edge from a batch of scanned pages.
- Tightening wide margins before combining pages into a booklet.
- Cutting the blank header band left by a fax or older printer.
Formats, algorithms and limits
Values are in PDF points, where 72 points equal one inch. Cropping sets the visible page area; the underlying content still exists outside the box in most viewers, so the file size does not drop and text outside the crop can reappear in editors that ignore media boxes.
Troubleshooting and honest limits
- Start with 10-20 points and check the result before trimming aggressively.
- Use the crop preview to avoid cutting page numbers or barcodes you still need.
- If you also need to remove content permanently rather than hide it, flatten or redact the page after cropping.
Frequently asked questions
Does cropping delete the trimmed content?
It hides it by shrinking the visible page box. The data outside the box usually remains in the file, so treat cropping as a layout change and use redaction when content must truly be removed.
Why is my crop not applied in my PDF editor?
Some editors show the full content area rather than the page's media box. Compliant viewers and printers respect the crop, and exporting the pages as images bakes the crop in.
Can I crop different amounts on different pages?
The tool applies one set of values per run. For pages that need different treatment, split the document and crop each part separately.
How do I convert millimetres to points?
Multiply millimetres by 2.835. A 10 mm margin is therefore about 28 points; a full A4 sheet is 595 by 842 points.
Related tools
Page written and reviewed by the FreeConvertio engineering team on 2026-10-14. Crop PDF runs entirely in your browser — no uploads, no account and no daily limits.