Crop PDF

Crop PDF lets you drag a rectangle over a rendered page and apply it to that page, a range you type, or the whole document. It sets the page CropBox, which is the region a reader displays, so nothing is re-rendered and text stays text. When one rectangle is applied to pages of different sizes it is laid on each as the same proportion of that page, rather than as absolute points.

How it works

  1. Open the PDF Drop the file onto the page. The first page renders as the stage you drag on.
  2. Drag the rectangle Draw a box, or drag its edges and corners. Arrow keys nudge it by a point and shift by ten, and the X, Y, width and height fields work in both directions.
  3. Choose a ratio, if you want one Free, square, A4, Letter, 4:3, 3:4 and 16:9 constrain the rectangle as you drag.
  4. Pick which pages change This page, every page, or a range you type. The list underneath names each page that will change and the size it becomes.
  5. Save The crop boxes are written and the document is handed back as a download.

Questions

Does cropping a PDF delete the content outside the crop?
No, and this matters. Cropping sets the CropBox, which is the area a reader shows, while the MediaBox and everything drawn outside the new box remain in the file. It is correct for layout and wrong for secrecy: to remove something permanently, redact it or export the pages as images and rebuild.
Does cropping make the file smaller?
No. Nothing is re-encoded and no content is discarded, so a 40 MB scan cropped to a quarter of its area is still 40 MB. Use the shrink tool if size is the problem.
What happens on a document with different page sizes?
The rectangle is stored as a proportion of the page you drew it on and applied as the same proportion of every other page, so a mixed A4 and A3 document comes out with different absolute sizes. The list under the page shows the size each page becomes before you save.

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