How to use it
- Drop your PDF here.
- Drag a rectangle on the first-page preview around the area you want to keep.
- Optionally enter which pages to crop, like 2-10.
- Click Crop and download.
Why crop a PDF
- Wide white margins make text tiny on a phone or e-reader. Cropping them lets the content fill the screen.
- Scanner borders: dark edges, punched holes and the shadow of a book spine look sloppy in a shared document.
- Slides and posters exported with extra space around them.
- A single region you care about, such as a chart, a map or a receipt photographed on a larger page.
- Printing on a different paper size with less wasted space.
How to choose the crop area
The first page is shown as a preview. Press and drag with your mouse or finger to draw a rectangle; the area outside it is dimmed so you can see exactly what will remain. Drag again to redraw it.
The rectangle is applied proportionally to the other pages. If you keep the middle 80% of the first page's width, every other page also keeps its middle 80%. That works well for documents where all pages share the same layout, like a book scan or a report. If some pages are different, crop them separately by typing a page range (for example 1 for just the cover, or 2- for everything after it) and run the tool again on the result.
What cropping does and does not do
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is the page size changed? | Yes. The visible page becomes the cropped area, and printing uses the new size. |
| Is quality affected? | No. Text, vector graphics and images are not re-rendered. |
| Is the hidden area deleted? | No. It is outside the page box but still in the file. |
| Can someone recover it? | Possibly, with PDF editing software. |
Because of the last two rows, do not use cropping to hide confidential information. To permanently remove names, account numbers or signatures, use Redact PDF, which burns black boxes into the page so the content underneath is gone.
Private and fast
Cropping happens in your browser, so the PDF is never uploaded. The change only adjusts each page's boundaries, so even long documents are processed almost instantly and the file size stays about the same.
Your original PDF is not modified. You download a new, cropped copy, so you can always go back and try a different rectangle.
Related tools
- Split PDF pages in half cuts two-page book scans into single pages.
- Rotate PDF fixes sideways pages before or after cropping.
- Multiple pages per sheet does the opposite: fits several pages on one sheet for printing.
- Compress PDF reduces file size, which cropping alone does not do.
A worked example
You scanned a paperback book two pages at a time and each page has a thick gray border from the scanner lid. Open the PDF, drag a rectangle that hugs the text block on the first page with a small margin around it, leave the pages field empty, and click Crop and download. Every page now shows just the text area, which reads far better on a tablet. If the first page is a cover with a different layout, crop with 2- first, then crop page 1 separately on the result.
Frequently asked questions
How do I crop all pages of a PDF at once?
Draw the crop rectangle on the first page and leave the pages field empty. The same proportional crop applies to every page.
Does cropping reduce PDF quality?
No. Only the page boundaries change; the content is not re-rendered.
Does cropping make the file smaller?
Not much. The cropped-out area is still stored in the file. Use Compress PDF to reduce size.
Can I use crop to hide private information?
No. Cropped content can be recovered. Use Redact PDF to remove sensitive content permanently.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Cropping happens in your browser.
Last updated: November 12, 2026