Crop PDF Pages

Set the visible area of each PDF page with a draggable crop box, review pages individually, and download a new PDF with updated page CropBoxes.

Click here to upload a PDF

PDF files only

What "Crop" Means in a PDF

PDF pages can contain several page-boundary boxes. This tool changes the page's CropBox, which tells PDF viewers which rectangular area should be displayed or printed as the visible page.

The important consequence is that cropping here is non-destructive to the page content. Text, images, annotations, or other objects outside the new visible rectangle can remain in the PDF file even though a normal viewer no longer shows them.

That makes CropBox cropping useful for hiding scanner borders, excess white margins, registration areas, or unwanted edge content. It is not a redaction tool and should never be used to remove confidential information.

How the Crop Preview Maps Back to the PDF

The preview is rendered with PDF.js, where the on-screen rectangle is manipulated from the top-left like ordinary browser content. PDF pages use their own coordinate system. At export time, the tool converts the selected preview corners back into PDF coordinates before calling setCropBox().

That conversion matters for asymmetric crops and rotated pages. Simply copying the preview's top coordinate into a PDF CropBox would place the crop incorrectly because pdf-lib defines the CropBox from its lower-left corner.

Multi-Page PDFs: What Happens to Pages You Do Not Touch?

Each page stores its own selection. You can trim page 1 tightly, leave page 2 alone, and choose a different rectangle for page 3.

An untouched page defaults to its full currently visible page area. This is deliberately conservative: reviewing one page should not automatically trim ten percent from every other page in the document.

Reset Crop restores the current page to its full visible area. It does not apply a preset margin reduction.

Cropping Is Not Redaction or File-Size Compression

Not redaction

Content outside the CropBox may remain recoverable in the PDF structure. Use a dedicated redaction workflow when information must actually be removed.

Not guaranteed compression

Updating page boxes does not necessarily delete image or text data outside the visible rectangle, so cropping should not be expected to reduce the PDF file size substantially.

A Practical Margin-Cropping Workflow

  1. Load the PDF and inspect the first page preview.
  2. Drag an edge or corner inward until unwanted scanner border or whitespace is shaded.
  3. Move the whole rectangle if the content is not centered inside the page.
  4. Review later pages when their margins or orientations differ. Unedited pages remain uncropped.
  5. Create the cropped copy, open it in a PDF viewer, and confirm important edge content is still visible before replacing any original file.

Crop PDF Questions

Does cropping permanently delete content outside the box?

No. This tool changes the page CropBox. Content outside that visible boundary can remain in the document, so cropping must not be treated as secure deletion or redaction.

Can every page use a different crop?

Yes. Each page keeps its own rectangle. Pages you never adjust remain at their full currently visible area.

What does Reset Crop do?

It restores the current page to its full visible area. It does not change the crop selections you made on other pages.

Will cropping make the PDF file much smaller?

Not necessarily. Hidden content can remain in the PDF streams, so changing the visible page boundary is different from deleting content or compressing the file.

Does this work with rotated PDF pages?

The export converts the on-screen selection through the PDF.js viewport back into PDF coordinates, so the crop is not based on an assumption that every page has zero rotation.

Why does the tool show crop values as percentages?

The overlay is a visual selection relative to each rendered page. Percentages avoid pretending those browser-preview coordinates are hardware pixels or universal physical units.

Can I use cropping to hide sensitive information?

You can hide it visually, but you should not use this as a security measure. Use proper PDF redaction when confidential content must be irreversibly removed.

Is the PDF uploaded by this component?

No upload request is made by this component. PDF.js renders the selected browser File locally, and pdf-lib writes the updated CropBoxes in the browser.

Related Tools