PDF tool
Crop a PDF
Trim any amount off each edge, measured in millimetres. Mostly used to cut the generous white margins off academic papers so the text fills a tablet or e-reader screen instead of floating in the middle of it.
- 100% free
- No signup
- Never uploaded
Drop your file here
or click to browse from your device
Supports PDF · Max 100 MB · Up to 5,000 pages
Settings
Leave as "all", or narrow it down like 1-3, 8, 12-.
- Secure & privateYour files are never shared
- Lightning fastMost images in under a second
- High qualitymozjpeg and libvips under the hood
- Works everywhereAny device, any browser
Output quality
Cropping changes each page's visible window and nothing else — no content is redrawn, so text stays selectable, images keep their resolution, and the file is the same size it was. The window is measured from what the page currently displays rather than from its underlying sheet size, so a page that has already been cropped once behaves the way it looks rather than jumping somewhere unexpected. Because the trimmed material is retained in the file, this is a presentation change and not a redaction; the tool is deliberately explicit about that rather than letting anyone assume otherwise.
See what this tool actually did to real files — median size change, speed and sample size, published whichever way the numbers fall.
Privacy: this tool does not upload your file
The file is never sent anywhere
This tool is JavaScript running in your tab. Your document is read from your disk into browser memory and never transmitted — not to us, not to anyone. It handles files up to 100 MB and 5,000 pages.
You can check this yourself
Load this page, turn off your internet connection, and run the tool. It still works. That is not a promise about our conduct — it is something you can verify in ten seconds.
Nothing to delete afterwards
There is no upload, no job record and no copy on any server, so there is no retention period. Close the tab and the working copy is gone with it.
No third parties involved
The PDF engine and its fonts are served from this domain rather than a public CDN, so no outside company sees that you used this page, or when.
Input, output and limits
Every figure below is read from the same configuration the server enforces, so this page cannot promise a limit the system will refuse.
- Input formats
- application/pdf
- Output format
- application/pdf
- Maximum file size
- 100 MB per file
- Maximum pages
- 5,000 per run
- Multiple files
- One file at a time
- Price
- Free, with no account and no watermark
- Processing
- Inside your browser — the file is never uploaded
- Engine
- pdf-lib, running inside your browser
- File retention
- None — nothing is uploaded, so there is nothing to keep or delete
Common use cases
Reading papers on a tablet or e-reader
Journal articles carry margins sized for print. Trimming them makes the text substantially larger on a small screen without changing the font.
Removing scanner edges
Flatbed scans often include a black border or part of the lid. Cropping tidies that up.
Cutting off headers and footers
Repeated running heads and download banners can be trimmed away for a cleaner read.
Settings you can change
Trim from the top (mm)
From 0 to 200, default 0.
Trim from the right (mm)
From 0 to 200, default 0.
Trim from the bottom (mm)
From 0 to 200, default 0.
Trim from the left (mm)
From 0 to 200, default 0.
Which pages
Default: all.
Leave as "all", or narrow it down like 1-3, 8, 12-.
Troubleshooting
- It said the margins remove the whole page
- The numbers you entered add up to more than the page is wide or tall. The message includes that page's real size in millimetres — keep the totals below it.
- Some text got cut off
- Start again from the original with smaller values. Cropping an already-cropped file trims further from where you are, so going back to the source is the reliable route.
- Nothing appears to have happened
- All four edges were left at zero. At least one has to be above zero for there to be anything to crop.
- I cropped something out but it is still in the file
- That is how cropping works — the content is hidden, not deleted. For genuine removal, delete the page entirely.
Something else went wrong? Tell us what happened — a person reads every report, and that is how this list gets longer.
Frequently asked questions
Browse pdf toolsIs the cropped content actually removed from the file?
No — and this is the one thing worth understanding before you use it. Cropping sets a visible window on each page; the material outside that window is still in the document and comes back if the crop is undone. That is fine for reading comfort and wrong for hiding information. To remove something permanently, delete the whole page, or export to images with PDF to JPG and rebuild.
How do I know how much to trim?
Start with 15 to 20 mm on each side for a typical journal article and adjust from there. An A4 page is 210 mm across, so the four margins together have to come to less than that — if they do not, you get a message naming the page rather than an empty document.
Does cropping reduce the file size?
Barely. Nothing is deleted, so the only change is a small amount of page metadata. If size is the goal, Compress PDF is the tool.
Can I crop only some pages?
Yes. Leave the pages box on "all" for the whole document, or name specific pages. Cropping is applied relative to what each page currently shows, so running it twice trims twice from where you last saw it.
Where does my file go when I use this tool?
Nowhere. This tool is JavaScript that runs inside your browser tab, so the file is read straight from your disk into memory on your own device and never sent to us. There is no upload, no job record and no copy to delete afterwards — close the tab and the working copy goes with it. You can confirm this yourself: load the page, disconnect from the internet, and the tool still works. It handles files up to 100 MB and 5,000 pages, and those limits come from what one browser tab can hold rather than from anything on our side.