Crop PDF — Trim Pages & Margins Free
Drag a box or type exact margins to cut away white space, scanner borders and crop marks — on one page or every page.
Loading PDF…
Drag on the page to draw a box · drag inside it to move · pull the handles to resize. Mouse and touch both work.
⚠️ Cropping is not redaction. It hides everything outside the box in PDF viewers, but that content is still inside the file and can be recovered. Don't rely on cropping to remove sensitive information.
How do I crop a PDF online for free?
To crop a PDF for free, open PDFChai Crop PDF, drop in your file and drag a box over the part of the page you want to keep — or type exact top, right, bottom and left margins in millimetres or percent. Choose whether the crop applies to every page or only the current one, then click Crop & Download to save yourfile-cropped-pdfchai.pdf. Everything runs inside your browser, so the PDF is never uploaded, and there is no signup or watermark. Cropping hides the trimmed area rather than deleting it, so it is not a safe way to remove sensitive information.
PDFChai Crop PDF vs Other Online Croppers
| Feature | PDFChai | Typical Online Croppers |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 100% free, unlimited use | Free tier with limits, then paid |
| Privacy | Cropped in your browser — PDF never uploaded | PDF uploaded to their servers |
| Signup | None required | Account or email often required |
| Watermark | Never added | Sometimes added on free plans |
| Ways to crop | Drag a box (mouse or touch) or type exact margins in mm or % | Often drag-only, without exact values |
| Page scope | All pages or only the current page | Varies by tool |
| Text quality | Text stays vector and selectable — no re-rendering | Some tools turn pages into images |
Based on typical free online PDF croppers in 2026; features and limits differ between providers and change over time.
What is a Crop PDF Tool?
A Crop PDF tool trims the visible area of PDF pages so that only the part you care about is shown. It is the quickest way to get rid of wide white margins, the dark borders and shadows a scanner leaves around a sheet, printer crop marks and bleed on print-ready artwork, or empty space around a chart you want to reuse. A tightly cropped page is also far easier to read on a phone, tablet or e-reader, because the text fills more of the screen.
With PDFChai Crop PDF you can drag a crop box directly on a page preview, with a mouse or your finger, and fine-tune it using the corner and edge handles. When you need precision, type exact margins in millimetres or percent instead. The page is drawn by Mozilla's open-source pdf.js engine, and pdf-lib then writes a new CropBox and MediaBox for each page, converting your selection into PDF coordinates correctly even when a page is rotated 90°, 180° or 270°. Everything happens on your own device, so your file is never uploaded.
Because cropping only changes the page boxes, text stays sharp, selectable and searchable and images are not re-compressed. That also means the trimmed area is hidden, not deleted: the content outside the box is still stored in the file and can be revealed again by software that resets the page boxes. Cropping is ideal for layout and readability, but it is not a secure redaction — never rely on it to remove confidential information.
⚡ Quick Answer:
- Go to debugspot.com/crop-pdf and drop in your PDF
- Drag a box over the area you want to keep (or type the margins)
- Use Prev / Next to check the crop on other pages
- Choose All pages or Current page only
- Click Crop & Download to save
yourfile-cropped-pdfchai.pdf
100% free · No signup · No watermark · Files stay on your device
Step-by-Step Guide
Everything you need to know — done in under a minute.
Open your PDF
Drag and drop a PDF onto the box above, or click to choose one. The first page appears as a large preview, exactly as it looks in a PDF reader — including any rotation. The file is read locally by your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
Draw or type the crop area
Press and drag anywhere on the page to draw a crop box, drag inside the box to move it, or pull the round handles on the corners and edges to resize it. Everything outside the box is dimmed so you can see exactly what will be cut. Prefer numbers? Type the top, right, bottom and left margins in mm or % and the box updates as you type.
Check other pages and pick the scope
Step through the document with Prev and Next to make sure the box suits every page — scanned pages often sit at slightly different positions. Then choose All pages to crop the whole document the same way, or Current page only to crop just the page on screen.
Crop and download
Click Crop & Download. The new PDF is saved as yourfile-cropped-pdfchai.pdf with the trimmed page size. Need a different crop on another page? Open the downloaded file again, go to that page and crop it with Current page only.
How Does It Work?
Understanding what happens behind the scenes helps you trust the tool — especially with confidential files.
🖥️ Accurate page preview
pdf.js renders the selected page onto a canvas at screen resolution, honouring the page's existing crop area and its /Rotate setting, so the preview matches what PDF readers display.
📐 From screen pixels to PDF points
Your crop box is stored as a fraction of the visible page. On export it is converted into PDF user-space coordinates (points, where 1 pt = 1/72 inch), correcting for the preview scale, the origin of the page's original box and any 90°, 180° or 270° rotation.
✂️ New page boxes with pdf-lib
pdf-lib writes the result as each page's CropBox and MediaBox, plus matching trim, bleed and art boxes, so browsers, desktop readers and mobile viewers all show the same trimmed page. The page content itself is left untouched.
📤 Private, in-memory download
The edited PDF is assembled in your browser's memory and downloaded straight to your device. No copy is kept anywhere, and closing the tab clears it.
Key Features & Advantages
Drag-to-crop with touch support
Draw, move and resize the crop box with a mouse, trackpad, stylus or finger. Larger handles appear on touch screens so adjusting on a phone is easy.
Exact margins in mm or %
Type precise top, right, bottom and left margins. Millimetres trim the same physical amount from every page; percent trims the same proportion of each page.
All pages or one page
Apply the same crop to the entire document in one go, or crop only the page you are looking at and leave the rest alone.
Rotation-aware
Pages rotated 90°, 180° or 270° are handled correctly, so the area you select on screen is exactly the area that is kept.
Text stays crisp
Cropping never turns pages into images — text remains vector, selectable and searchable, and pictures keep their original quality.
100% private
Your PDF never leaves your device. No upload, no signup and no watermark on the result.
Who Uses This Tool?
This is one of the most common document tasks in work, study and everyday life. Here are the people who use it every day.
📚 Students & researchers
Trim the wide margins of journal articles, theses and textbooks so the text fills a tablet or e-reader screen, making long PDFs much more comfortable to read.
🖨️ Designers & print shops
Remove printer crop marks, colour bars and bleed from print-ready artwork to create a clean, trimmed proof that clients can review on screen.
🧾 Office & finance staff
Tidy scanned receipts, invoices and forms by cutting away the dark scanner border and the empty space around the paper before filing them.
👩🏫 Teachers
Crop a worksheet, diagram or exam question out of a larger page so it can be projected, printed bigger or dropped into a lesson pack.
📊 Analysts & presenters
Isolate a chart or table from a report page so it can be shown on a slide or shared on its own, without the surrounding text.
🏠 Everyday users
Fix a phone-scanned document with uneven edges, or trim a ticket, label or boarding pass down to the part that matters before printing.
Common Use Cases
The everyday situations that bring people to this tool.
📖 Reading on small screens
Cropping away 15–20 mm of white margin can make text noticeably bigger on a phone or e-reader, because the reader scales the trimmed page to fit the screen.
🗂️ Cleaning up scans
Scanners often capture the lid, a shadow or a dark band around the paper. Crop it off so every page looks like a clean original.
✂️ Removing crop marks and bleed
PDFs exported for print with marks and bleed look odd on screen. Crop them to the trim size to show the finished design.
📈 Extracting a figure
Keep just one chart, photo or table from a page, then save it as an image with PDF to PNG or PDF to JPG.
📐 Making pages consistent
Trim pages from different sources to similar proportions before you merge them into one PDF, so the combined document looks uniform.
🏷️ Printing labels and tickets
Crop a shipping label or e-ticket to its real size so it prints without a sheet of blank paper around it.
How to Use It on Any Device
Works on every platform, right in the browser. Here are instructions for the most common devices.
🪟 How to crop a PDF on Windows
Open Chrome, Edge or Firefox, go to debugspot.com/crop-pdf and drop in your file. Drag the box with your mouse, or type margins for exact results, then download. There is nothing to install.
Works on: Windows 8, 10, 11 · Chrome, Edge, Firefox
🍎 How to crop a PDF on Mac
Preview can crop pages, but this tool adds exact millimetre or percent margins and a page-by-page check before you save — handy when every page must be trimmed the same way. It works in Safari, Chrome and Firefox.
Works on: All macOS · Safari, Chrome, Firefox
🤖 How to crop a PDF on Android
Open Chrome, visit the page and pick your PDF from Files or Google Drive. Drag the box and handles with your finger — the page does not scroll while you crop — then tap Crop & Download.
Works on: Android 8+ · Chrome
📱 How to crop a PDF on iPhone / iPad
In Safari, choose your PDF from the Files app, drag the corner handles with your finger (or Apple Pencil on iPad) and save the cropped file back to Files.
Works on: iOS 15+ · Safari, Chrome
💻 How to crop a PDF on Chromebook
Open Chrome, go to debugspot.com/crop-pdf and crop right in the browser. It is ideal for school Chromebooks where installing PDF software is not allowed.
Works on: All Chromebooks · Chrome
Tips & Best Practices
✅ Check every page before cropping them all
Use Prev and Next to scan through the document. Scanned pages often shift slightly, so leave a few millimetres of breathing room around the content.
✅ Use mm for a fixed trim, % for mixed page sizes
In millimetres the same physical margin is removed from every page; in percent the same share of each page is removed. If a page is too small for the margins, it is left unchanged and you'll be told which page.
✅ Never use cropping to hide secrets
Cropped content is still inside the file. To truly get rid of sensitive details, use a proper redaction tool — or convert the cropped pages to images with PDF to PNG and rebuild the file with JPG to PDF, so only the visible area survives (the text will no longer be selectable).
✅ Crop different pages differently
Choose Current page only, download, then open the result and crop the next page that needs its own box. Repeat until every page is done.
✅ Expect a similar file size
Because the hidden content is kept, cropping rarely makes a PDF smaller. If you need a lighter file, run it through Compress PDF afterwards.
✅ Crop before signing
Any change to a digitally signed PDF makes the signature show as invalid. Crop the document first, then sign it.
Full List of Benefits
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Crop PDF free to use?
Yes. It is completely free, with no signup, no watermark and no limit on how many files you crop.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The preview and the cropping both run inside your browser with pdf.js and pdf-lib. Your file never leaves your device.
Does cropping delete the content outside the box?
No. Cropping changes the page's visible area (its CropBox and MediaBox). The trimmed content is hidden but still stored in the file and can be revealed by software that resets the page boxes, so do not rely on cropping to remove sensitive information — use a redaction tool instead.
Will cropping make my PDF smaller?
Usually not, because the hidden content stays in the file. If you need a smaller file, use Compress PDF after cropping.
Can I crop just one page?
Yes. Go to the page with Prev or Next, choose Current page only and click Crop & Download. Only that page changes; every other page stays as it was.
Can I crop all pages at once?
Yes. Choose All pages and the same crop is applied to every page in the document in a single step.
How do exact margins work?
Type how much to trim from the top, right, bottom and left. In millimetres the same physical amount is cut from every page; in percent the same proportion of each page is cut. The box on the preview moves as you type, and dragging the box updates the numbers.
Does it work with rotated or landscape pages?
Yes. The preview shows each page the way a PDF reader does, and your crop is converted into that page's own coordinates, taking 90°, 180° and 270° rotation into account.
Will the text still be selectable after cropping?
Yes. Pages are not converted to images, so text stays sharp, selectable and searchable, and pictures keep their original quality.
Can I crop a PDF on my phone?
Yes. Drag the crop box and its handles with your finger in Chrome on Android or Safari on iPhone and iPad — the page will not scroll while you are cropping.
Can I crop a password-protected PDF?
If the PDF is encrypted or needs a password to open, unlock it first with Unlock PDF, then crop the unlocked copy.
Can I undo a crop later?
Keep your original file to be safe. Because cropping hides rather than deletes, a PDF editor that can reset the page boxes may be able to bring the hidden area back — which is exactly why cropping is not a secure way to remove content.