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PDF cropping adjusts the visible boundary of a PDF page — trimming margins, removing white space, or isolating a specific content area — by modifying the page's CropBox, which is the rectangle the PDF viewer uses to display the page. Trim margins, remove excess whitespace, or crop PDF pages to a specific area. Drag the crop handles to set the exact crop region. Apply to one page or all pages at once. Free PDF crop tool — no signup, no watermark, runs entirely in your browser. Your file never leaves your device.
PDF cropping adjusts the visible boundary of a PDF page — trimming margins, removing white space, or isolating a specific content area — by modifying the page's CropBox, which is the rectangle the PDF viewer uses to display the page. Trim margins, remove excess whitespace, or crop PDF pages to a specific area. Drag the crop handles to set the exact crop region. Apply to one page or all pages at once. Free PDF crop tool — no signup, no watermark, runs entirely in your browser. Your file never leaves your device.
Cropping PDF pages comes up in several practical document workflows. Remove excessive white margins — documents created for print often have large margins designed for physical paper. When viewed on screen or embedded in a presentation, those margins waste space and make the content appear small. Cropping to tighter margins makes the document fill the screen properly. Fix scanned documents — scanned pages frequently have uneven margins, black borders from the scanner bed, or visible edges of the paper. Cropping removes these artefacts and gives the document a clean, professional appearance. Extract a specific area from a page — crop a page to show only a chart, table, or diagram, removing the surrounding text. The cropped page can then be used as an image in a presentation or report…
This is an important distinction that most users are not aware of. In the PDF file format, cropping does not permanently delete the content outside the crop boundary — it hides it by adjusting the visible area of the page. The hidden content remains in the file and can be revealed by removing the crop box in a PDF editor. This means cropping a PDF is suitable for visual presentation purposes — making the page look cleaner, fitting it into a viewer, or preparing it for a presentation. It is not suitable for hiding confidential content. If you need to permanently remove content from a PDF page, use the redact PDF tool instead. PDFWix's crop tool adjusts the visible crop area of each page as described above. For permanent removal of content outside the visible area, use…
Cropping and redaction solve different problems. Use this table to choose the right tool for your goal.
Yes. PDFWix's crop PDF tool is completely free with no daily task limits and no watermarks on output. No account or signup required.
Yes. Set the crop area on one page and apply it to all pages in the document with one click. Useful for removing consistent margins from every page of a scanned document.
No. PDF cropping hides the area outside the crop boundary but does not delete it from the file. For permanent removal of sensitive content, use redact PDF instead.
Yes. Apply individual crop settings to specific pages before saving, rather than applying the same crop to all pages.
Yes. PDFWix's crop tool runs entirely in your browser using WebAssembly — your PDF never leaves your device. No upload to any server.
Yes. Open pdfwix.com/crop-pdf in Safari on iPhone or Chrome on Android. The crop handles work on touchscreens. No app install required.
Slightly, but not significantly. Cropping modifies the CropBox metadata — a small change to the PDF structure. The content outside the crop area is still stored in the file, which is why the file size barely changes. To significantly reduce file size, use PDFWix Compress PDF after cropping.
PDFWix Crop PDF uses a visual drag-to-crop interface rather than preset page sizes. For resizing to standard dimensions like A4 (210×297mm) or US Letter (8.5×11in), use the crop handles and set precise pixel dimensions if needed. For a full page resize rather than a content crop, combining crop with the page organizer may achieve the result — or consider recreating the PDF at the target size from the source document.
Open PDFWix Crop PDF, upload your file, and drag the crop handles inward from each edge to trim the margins. To remove equal margins on all sides, drag each handle in by the same amount. Apply to all pages for consistency across the document. Download the cropped PDF — the margins are hidden from view but the underlying content is still in the file. For truly removing content, use redact PDF.
PDFWix Crop PDF uses a visual drag-to-crop interface rather than preset page sizes. To crop to A4 proportions (210×297mm), drag the crop handles to match the A4 aspect ratio while keeping the content centred. For precise dimensional cropping to exact millimetre values, a desktop tool like Adobe Acrobat Pro or PDF-XChange Editor provides numeric crop box inputs. PDFWix is best for visual margin trimming and content isolation.
Slightly but not significantly. Cropping only modifies the CropBox metadata — a tiny change to the PDF structure. The content outside the crop area is still stored in the file (it is just hidden), so the file size barely decreases. To significantly reduce file size, use PDFWix Compress PDF after cropping.
To rotate pages before cropping, use rotate PDF first. To permanently remove content from PDF pages, use redact PDF instead of cropping. To resize a PDF by removing pages entirely rather than cropping, use remove pages.