How to Crop a PDF Free – Remove Margins & Borders | PDFworld

Learn how to crop PDF pages online for free. Remove white borders, unused margins and whitespace. Step-by-step guide with tips. PDFworld.

Cropping a PDF lets you trim unwanted white space, large margins, or scanned borders from each page. Whether you are preparing a document for printing, reducing the visible area, or cleaning up a scanned book, PDFworld's free PDF crop tool gives you precise control over every page — all in your browser.

Why Crop a PDF?

• Remove scanner black borders from scanned books or documents
• Trim white margins that are too large for a magazine or newsletter layout
• Resize the visible page area without changing the underlying content
• Prepare PDFs for printing on custom paper sizes
• Hide unwanted areas like headers or watermarks near the edge

How to Crop a PDF — Step-by-Step

Step 1: Go to the Crop PDF Tool

Open pdfworld.in/crop-pdf in any browser. No account required.

Step 2: Upload Your PDF

Click Choose File or drag and drop your PDF. The tool loads a preview of your pages instantly.

Step 3: Choose Your Crop Unit

Select mm, pt, or in (inches) depending on your preference. Professional designers often use pt; most users prefer mm.

Step 4: Set Crop Margins

Enter values for Top, Bottom, Left, and Right margins. A larger value cuts more from that edge.

Pro tip: Start with small values (e.g., 10mm on all sides) and preview before applying a large crop.

Step 5: Choose Which Pages

Select All Pages to apply the same crop to every page, or Custom Pages to enter specific pages or ranges (e.g., 1-3, 7, 10-12).

Step 6: Click Crop and Download

Click Crop PDF. Download your trimmed PDF immediately.

Common Use Cases

Removing Scanner Black Borders

Scanned documents often have dark borders from the scanner bed. Set uniform margins of 5–15mm on all sides to remove them cleanly.

Trimming Academic PDF Margins

Many research papers have very wide margins. Crop them to increase text size when reading on a tablet or phone.

Cropping Different Pages Differently

Use Custom Pages to apply one crop to the cover (page 1) and a different crop to the inner pages (2-100).

Frequently Asked Questions

Does cropping permanently remove content? Cropping applies a PDF CropBox, which hides content outside the margin but does not delete it. For permanent removal use our Redact PDF tool.

Can I undo a crop? Your original file is unchanged on your device. Simply re-upload the original if you need to adjust.

Will cropping reduce the file size? Cropping alone does not reduce file size significantly. Use Compress PDF for that.

Related Tools

• Split PDF — Extract specific pages after cropping
• Compress PDF — Reduce file size of your cropped PDF
• Redact PDF — Permanently remove content from pages