How to Crop A PDF

How to crop a PDF when we need to trim unwanted white space in it? Well, the obvious answer is to find a PDF Crop tool. With tons of researches and testes, we've collected 6 simple solutions for you. To crop PDF online, you can use EasePDF. To Crop PDF offline, Mac Preview, Adobe Acrobat Pro, PDFelement, PDF Expert, and Snagit are all decent recommendations.

Option 1. Crop PDF Online with EasePDF

Cropping PDF online is the most convenient option because it doesn't require you to install any third-party program. All you need is an internet connection and you'll be able to crop a PDF on your Window, Mac, Linux, iOS, or Android device. One of the remarkable online PDF crop tools is EasePDF. Now let's follow the instructions below to crop PDF online.

Step 1. Go to the EasePDF homepage and open the "Crop PDF" tool.

Step 2. Upload PDF. Click the "Add File(s)" button to upload the PDF file you want to crop to the server. If the PDF file you want to add is in your Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, just click on the corresponding icon below the "Add File(s)" button.

Step 3. Crop PDF. There's a cropping rectangle on the PDF page, use your mouse to readjust it to select a range you would like to crop. When you finish, click the "Crop PDF" button and EasePDF will start cropping your PDF in the selective area for every page.

Step 4. When the cropping process is done, click the "Download" button to download the Cropped PDF. Then you've finished your work.

Option 2. How to Crop PDF in Preview

The Preview app that comes with the Mac system is a good choice to read and edit PDF when you don't have any PDF viewer or editor installed on your Mac computer. It can help you to edit text, add a password, crop PDF, etc. To crop a PDF in Preview is very simple, but please keep in mind that it can only crop a single page at one time. Now let's see how it works.

Step 1. Open the PDF you want to crop with Preview.

Step 2. Click the little pen point icon on top of the Preview interface to open the markup toolbar. Or you can go to the "View" menu and choose "Show Markup Toolbar". Then select the "Rectangular Selection" button on the markup toolbar.

Step 3. Put your mouse on the PDF page you want to crop, and left-click on where to start, then drag the mouse to select an area on the page. When you finish selecting, click the "Crop" button the newly appear on the markup toolbar.

Step 4. A prompt will pop up a warning "Cropping a PDF document doesn't delete the content outside the selection." And you should realize that the content outside the selection is only hidden in Preview, but you might be able to view it in other applications. Click the "OK" button if you're fine with it.

Step 5. If you the content outside the cropping selection to be removed permanently from the PDF, just go to the "File" menu and select "Export as PDF". This action saves the cropped PDF as a new file and will look the same in any application.

Option 3. Crop PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro

As the world-leading PDF program, Adobe Acrobat Pro offers a PDF crop tool in its powerful PDF editing toolset. We can crop a PDF with Adobe in a few easy steps. Acrobat helps you to crop PDF on a single page or the whole file.

Step 1. Install Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on your computer. There are free trial versions for both Windows and Mac.

Step 2. Open the PDF file needed to be cropped with Acrobat.

Step 3. Go to the "Tool" menu on top, then choose "Edit PDF". Now Adobe Acrobat will enter an editing mode.

Step 4. Click the "Crop Pages" icon on the editing toolbar. Then select an area of the page to crop by dragging a rectangle on the page with the mouse.

Step 5. Double-click inside the cropping rectangle. A new dialog will appear for you to set the cropped page. You can set the margin, page size, and page range in it. Make sure everything is set as your wishes and click "OK". And the PDF page will be cropped as your selection and setting. Go crop other PDF pages if you want.

Option 4. How to Crop a PDF with PDFelement

PDFelement is a good desktop alternative as Adobe Acrobat Pro for PDF editing, converting, and creating in daily work. With PDFelement, you can also crop PDF very easily.

Step 1. Download and install PDFelement in your computer, both Windows and Mac version are available.

Step 2. Open the PDF you need to crop with PDFelement.

Step 3. Choose the "Edit" option on the top menu bar, then select the "Crop" button on the secondary menu.

Step 4. A "Crop Settings" box will pop up. Set the cropping area by entering figures on the "Crop Margin" or dragging your mouse readjust the crop box on the left. If you want to crop certain pages of the PDF, set the page range for specific pages. When you select "All" on the "Page Range" section, the PDF file will be cropped for all pages. Click "OK" when you finish all settings and PDFelement will crop your PDF as you want.

Option 5. Crop a PDF with PDF Expert

PDF Expert is a PDF editor and reader for Mac with a modern and user-friendly interface. You can easily edit text, images, and links with PDF Expert. Above that, you can also crop a PDF with its PDF editing tools.

Step 1. Download and install PDF Expert for Mac.

Step 2. Open your target PDF with PDF Expert, then select the "Annotate" mode on the top menu bar.

Step 3. Click the "Content Selection" tool on the "Annotate" toolbar and select a content area to crop.

Step 4. Click the "Crop" icon and select to crop the "Current Page" or to crop "All Pages" from the drop-down list.

Option 6. Crop PDF with Snagit

Another solution to crop your PDF is to use a screenshot program. This might not be the smartest way compares to the other solutions we recommended above, but it works really well when you have to crop across different PDF pages. The premise is to install a screenshot app that enables you to capture a scrolling page like Snagit.

Step 1. Install Snagit on your computer, then run the program.

Step 2. Open the PDF document with any program that can open this format, and go to the page that you want to crop.

Step 3. Go back to Snagit and choose the "Capture" button on the top-left of the interface.

Step 4. Select "Image" on the left column of the newly opened window. Then choose "Panoramic" from the drop-down list on the "Selection" option. Now hit the red "Capture" button.

Step 5. Click on the PDF document you opened earlier and select an area on the current PDF page. Then click the "Start" button to begin Panoramic capture.

Step 6. Keep Scrolling down on the PDF until you reach where you want the crop selection ends, then hit the "Stop" button on the bottom menu bar. A capture image of your selective PDF page will be generated on the Snagit preview interface.

Step 7. Repeat step 4 to step 6 to capture every page selection you need. When you finish, use the free Images to PDF converter to combine and convert all capture PDF images to a new PDF file.

Conclusion

How to crop PDF online for free? Well, you just go for the online "Crop PDF" tool on EasePDF. You can also choose to crop PDF with a desktop program like Mac Preview, Adobe Acrobat Pro, PDFelement, PDF Expert, and Snagit.

Keep in mind that Mac Preview only crops a single PDF page at one time, while Adobe Acrobat Pro, PDFelement, and PDF Expert enable you to crop a PDF for the current page or all pages. Snagit is a unique way to crop PDF by capture PDF pages in any region you like then combine the captured images to create a new PDF file.

Just pick a solution that works for your cases and remember to share your new ideas on this topic.