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How to Crop PDF: Remove Margins and Extract Specific Areas

By PDFGo Team
PDFCropTrimMarginsGuide

How to Crop PDF: Remove Margins and Extract Specific Areas

Cropping PDFs lets you remove margins, extract specific areas, or resize pages by cutting away unwanted content. This is useful for cleaning up documents, focusing on specific content, or preparing pages for specific uses.

Why Crop PDFs?

There are several reasons to crop PDF pages:

  • Remove margins: Eliminate unwanted white space around content
  • Extract areas: Focus on specific sections of pages
  • Resize pages: Change page dimensions by cropping
  • Clean up: Remove unwanted borders or edges
  • Focus content: Highlight specific content areas
  • Print optimization: Prepare pages for specific print sizes

How PDF Cropping Works

Cropping uses coordinates to define the area to keep:

  • PDF points: 1 point = 1/72 inch
  • Coordinates: X and Y define top-left corner of crop area
  • Dimensions: Width and height define crop area size
  • Origin: (0, 0) is top-left corner of each page

How to Crop PDFs

Step 1: Select Your PDF

Choose the PDF file you want to crop.

Step 2: Set Crop Coordinates

Specify the crop area:

X Position (Left Edge):

  • Distance from left edge in points
  • 0 = left edge of page
  • Typical values: 20-50 for margins

Y Position (Top Edge):

  • Distance from top edge in points
  • 0 = top edge of page
  • Typical values: 20-50 for margins

Width:

  • Width of crop area in points
  • 595 = A4 width
  • 612 = Letter width

Height:

  • Height of crop area in points
  • 842 = A4 height
  • 792 = Letter height

Step 3: Apply Crop

Click to crop the PDF. The crop area is applied to all pages.

Step 4: Review and Save

Check the cropped PDF to ensure the correct area was kept, then save.

Common Use Cases

Remove Margins

Crop away large margins to focus on content and reduce page size.

Extract Sections

Crop to extract specific sections or areas from pages.

Resize Pages

Crop pages to create custom page dimensions.

Remove Borders

Crop away unwanted borders or edges from scanned documents.

Focus Content

Crop to highlight specific content areas or remove distractions.

Tips for Cropping

Coordinate Calculation

  • Start from (0,0): Top-left corner is origin
  • Measure in points: Use PDF point system (1/72 inch)
  • Common sizes: A4 = 595×842, Letter = 612×792
  • Test values: Try different coordinates to find right crop

Margin Removal

  • Small margins: X=20-50, Y=20-50 for typical margins
  • Larger margins: Adjust based on actual margin size
  • Test first: Crop test page to verify margins
  • Check content: Ensure important content isn't cropped

Area Extraction

  • Identify area: Determine exact area to extract
  • Calculate coordinates: Find X, Y, width, height
  • Test carefully: Verify crop area is correct
  • Review results: Check cropped area looks good

Best Practices

  1. Measure carefully: Calculate crop coordinates accurately
  2. Test first: Try cropping on one page first
  3. Check content: Ensure important content isn't lost
  4. Keep originals: Save original PDF before cropping
  5. Review results: Always check cropped PDF looks correct

Understanding Cropping

What Gets Kept

  • Crop area: Only content within crop area is kept
  • Content preserved: Content in crop area is maintained
  • Quality: Image and text quality is preserved

What Gets Removed

  • Outside crop area: Everything outside crop area is removed
  • Margins: Margins outside crop area are eliminated
  • Unwanted content: Content outside crop area is cut away

Common Page Sizes

A4 (210 × 297 mm)

  • Width: 595 points
  • Height: 842 points
  • Common: International standard

Letter (8.5 × 11 inches)

  • Width: 612 points
  • Height: 792 points
  • Common: US standard

Troubleshooting

Wrong Area Cropped

If wrong area was cropped:

  • Recalculate coordinates
  • Verify X, Y, width, height values
  • Test with different coordinates
  • Check coordinate system

Content Cut Off

If important content was removed:

  • Adjust crop area to include content
  • Increase width or height
  • Adjust X or Y position
  • Review original to identify correct area

Margins Still Present

If margins weren't removed:

  • Increase crop area (reduce X, Y)
  • Decrease width/height to remove more
  • Verify margin size in original
  • Adjust coordinates accordingly

Conclusion

Cropping PDFs is essential for removing margins, extracting specific areas, and resizing pages. Whether cleaning up documents or focusing on specific content, cropping gives you precise control over page dimensions.

Need to crop a PDF? PDFGo lets you crop pages using precise coordinates to remove margins, extract areas, or resize pages. Crop your PDFs with cloud-powered processing. Try PDFGo today!