How to Crop a PDF Page Online
Trim scanner borders, oversized white margins or unwanted edges from any page — drag a rectangle, fine-tune it, and download. Free, with no account, and without uploading a single byte to a server.
Why crop a PDF in the browser instead of a desktop app
Cropping usually comes up for one of two reasons: a scanner added black borders or a skewed white margin around the real content, or a page was built for a different paper size than you actually need. Either way, RedPDF's crop tool does the job using the open-source pdf-lib library running as JavaScript inside your own browser tab — nothing you open is ever sent to a server, so a cropped contract, ID scan or report never leaves your device.
It's also precise. Rather than typing in margin measurements and guessing, you drag a rectangle directly on a live preview of the page, see exactly what will be kept, and adjust the corners until it's right — then apply the same idea to any other page in the document.
Cropping a PDF page, step by step
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1. Open your PDF
Go to the Edit & Merge tool and drop your file onto the page, or click the dropzone to browse for it. The page previews load immediately.
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2. Select the page and click Crop
Click the page you want to trim in the thumbnail list so it shows in the main preview, then click Crop in the toolbar above it.
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3. Drag to draw the area to keep
Click and drag on the page preview to mark out the region you want to keep — everything outside it is dimmed so you can see exactly what will be trimmed away.
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4. Fine-tune or reposition it
Drag any of the four corner handles to resize the crop, or drag inside the rectangle to move it. Click the ✕ on the rectangle at any time to remove the crop and start over on that page.
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5. Repeat for other pages, then download
Select another page and repeat if you need to crop more than one — each page remembers its own crop independently (look for the small scissors badge on its thumbnail). Click Download PDF when you're done; the crop is applied the moment the file is built.
Things to know before you crop
Cropping changes a page's visible area (its CropBox), not its underlying content — the full original page is still there, just outside the area you kept, so there's no quality loss and nothing is permanently deleted from the file in a way that can't be undone by starting over with the original. That also means it works well as a first pass before other edits: crop a scanned page's black border, then use the edit tool to add text or a signature on the cleaned-up result.
Each page in a document can have its own crop, which is useful for scanned batches where pages don't line up identically — but if every page needs the exact same trim (for example, removing a printer's margin from a uniform multi-page export), draw it once on the first page and repeat the same drag on each remaining page for a consistent result.
Crop PDF — frequently asked questions
Does cropping delete the parts of the page I trim away?
No. Cropping only changes which part of the page is shown — the original content is still in the file, just outside the visible crop area. If you need to adjust it again, load the original (uncropped) file back into the tool and redraw the rectangle.
Can I crop every page the same way at once?
Each page is cropped individually so you have full control over scans that aren't perfectly aligned, but you can quickly repeat a very similar drag on each page in the list — the small scissors badge on a thumbnail shows which pages already have a crop queued up.
Can I undo a crop before downloading?
Yes. Click the ✕ button on the crop rectangle at any time before you download to remove it from that page, or drag the corner handles to adjust the area instead of starting over.
Does cropping work alongside rotating a page?
Yes. You can rotate a page in the thumbnail list and crop it — the crop area stays aligned with the page's content at any rotation, so you can fix a sideways scan and trim its border in any order.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere while I crop it?
No. Cropping, like every other tool on RedPDF, runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your file never leaves your device.