Free online PDF cropper that cuts white space and scanner borders off every page from a crop box drawn on a live preview. The crop runs in the browser, holds the layout intact and leaves the original file as it was.
Document format work by OnlinePCApps since 2013
Every one of these carries an edge that adds nothing. The online PDF cropper trims it, so the content reads larger and the page looks cleaner.
A page built for print wastes half the screen on a phone. A pass through the PDF cropper makes the text fill the display, so the same document is far easier to read on a small screen.
A scan carries a dark border, a page skew and binding-hole shadows at the edges. Those edges make a document look rough and can lower the accuracy of text recognition, which depends on how a PDF stores text.
A press proof arrives with registration, crop and trim marks in the margin. Those marks are meant for the print shop and have no place in the version shared with a reader.
Drop a PDF onto the panel above, or click to browse. It opens in the online PDF cropper, the page count shows beside the file name and the first page draws as a live preview.
Drag a box on the preview: the shaded area goes, the dashed box stays. Pull the handles to adjust, click Auto to find white margins, then tick Apply same crop to all pages or draw a box per page.
Click Crop PDF, then Download cropped PDF. The copy is named after the source with -cropped added, and the original file stays untouched. Undo steps back before the download.
Cropping a PDF sets a new page box over every page. The online PDF cropper draws it where the crop box sits on the preview and keeps the content underneath.
A crosshair on the live preview draws the crop box. Drag it to move or pull a corner or an edge handle to resize, while Zoom In, Zoom Out and Fit set the view for a precise edge.
The Auto button scans the page preview for the blank border and pulls the box in to the content, which clears white margins without a single edge measured by hand. A dark scanner border is drawn by hand.
A box drawn on one page crops that page. Tick Apply same crop to all pages for the entire file, or move through the Preview page list and draw a different box on every page.
Undo steps back through the last forty crops and Reset clears the page, so a wrong box costs nothing before the download. The source file is never altered, which is the way back afterwards.
Cropping, trimming margins and setting the page boxes all name the same action. The online PDF cropper stores the drawn area as the new MediaBox and CropBox and leaves the content underneath in place.
Both trim the margins off a PDF. What sets the online PDF cropper apart is where the document travels and what caps the job.
| Point of comparison | This tool This PDF cropper Trimmed on the device | Hosted croppers Uploaded and processed on a server |
|---|---|---|
| Where the file goes | Kept on the machine | Sent to a server |
| Crop can be reversed | Content kept, Undo on the panel | Usually, same method |
| Sign-up or watermark | Neither | Common above a free tier |
| Heavy files | Limited by the browser memory | Run on their servers |
| Compress right after | A separate step | Often chained in one flow |
Those last two rows belong to the hosted tools, and they are the fair case for uploading. A document beyond what a laptop can hold fits better on a server, and a hosted suite can crop then compress without a second upload. Every other row stays with the online PDF cropper, where the file never travels at all.
Setting a crop is a change to the page boundary written into the file. It needs no processing on a server, so the browser reads the document, adjusts the visible area and writes it back with nothing sent out.
Since the file is never received here, there is no store to secure and no retention policy to trust. A cropped document that may hold sensitive margins should still be flattened before sharing, because a plain crop hides that content rather than removing it.
A PDF page carries several boundary rectangles. The online PDF cropper sets two of them and leaves the rest as they were.
| Page box | Role | What cropping does to it |
|---|---|---|
| MediaBox | full page size | The physical extent of the sheet, the largest box. This PDF cropper sets it to the drawn area along with the CropBox, so a reader and a printer agree on the new page size. |
| CropBox | the visible area | The visible and printable area a reader displays, also called the bounding box. The box drawn on the preview becomes this rectangle, so the page shows only the area kept. |
| BleedBox | print bleed area | The margin beyond the trim where color runs off the edge for printing. The PDF cropper does not touch it. |
| TrimBox | final trimmed size | The intended page size after a press cuts the sheet. It stays as set by the file. |
| ArtBox | content extent | The boundary of the meaningful artwork on the page. It is left in place when the page boxes move. |
| Units | points, 1/72 inch | Page boxes are stored in points, 72 to an inch. The box drawn on the preview is converted to points for the page size and rotation before it is written, so no measurement is typed. |
| Hidden content | stays in the file | Content outside the new boxes is hidden, not deleted, so a flatten step is needed to remove it for good, as what a PDF keeps after an edit sets out. |
| File size | little change | Because the content is still present under the crop, the file does not shrink. A compress step handles size. |
| Resolution | kept, no re-render | Setting a boundary does not redraw the page, so text and images keep their full quality and resolution. A crop never softens the content it keeps. |
| Reversibility | Undo before download | Undo steps back through the last forty crops on the panel and Reset clears the current page. After the download the original file is the way back, since the saved copy carries the new page boxes. |
The Standards This Follows
The page boxes a PDF cropper works with are defined in the PDF specification, and a trimmed copy headed for long-term storage also follows what PDF/A is and when it is needed. The documents below set out the boundaries and the format.
Every one of these trims a page. They differ from the online PDF cropper in how permanent the crop is and how much they can automate.
Every method here keeps the file on the machine it opened on, apart from hosted croppers that ask for an upload. The online PDF cropper above does too.
Cropping a PDF is not the same as cropping an image. These three points are where the online PDF cropper differs from a photo editor.
The PDF cropper moves the page boxes and leaves the trimmed content in the file. That is what lets Undo bring a page back on the panel, and it is why hidden margins can still be extracted from the document.
Because the content behind the crop is still there, the file does not get smaller. A run through a compressor after the PDF cropper is what reduces the size for email or storage.
When the trimmed area holds something private, the PDF cropper alone is not enough. Flattening or reprinting the page bakes in the visible area and drops the hidden content.
The online PDF cropper handles the file in front of it, one at a time. A folder of scans with the same border, or a batch that runs every week, is work for the desktop edition, which reads from disk and detects the content on every page.
Point it at a directory and every PDF inside is cropped to the same margins or auto-trimmed to its content.
Every page is measured and the white border removed on its own, so mixed page sizes still come out clean.
A saved rule crops a folder on a schedule, which suits a scan archive that grows week by week.
Free, no sign-up and no upload. The online PDF cropper trims the page on the device, with Undo on the panel and the original file untouched.