Remove white space
Pull the frame in to whatever is actually printed — one button finds the ink — and then choose whether those margins are hidden or genuinely gone, which are two different files and only one of them is smaller to nobody.
- Runs on
- Your device
- Cost
- Free
- Account
- Not needed
- Watermark
- None
Your browser would not let the file travel between pages (private mode does this) — open Crop PDF and drop it there instead.
What happens to your file
It runs in this tab.
Your own browser does the work. Open the Network tab and watch it run: no request carries your file, and there is nothing on a server of ours to delete afterwards.
Says cropping only hides the margins — then offers to actually remove them.
Cropping hides the margins by default. Removing them is a separate choice.
- No watermark The result is your file, unmarked. There is no paid tier that removes something we put there.
- No account Crop PDF is exactly the same signed in or out. There is nothing to sign up for.
- No ads, no waiting No banners, no upsell pop-up, and no invented thirty-second queue standing between you and your download.
- Nothing to install It is a web page. The same one works on a phone: no app, no extension, no browser plugin.
- What it reads PDF. Anything it cannot read is turned down with a reason on screen, not a silent nothing.
No file at hand? Open Crop PDF anyway →
How the workspace works
It plays on its own. Tap a step to hold it there.
read here, not uploaded the preview updates as you change it working in this tab never left your device A drawing of the workspace — not a screenshot.
You do not have to find the edges yourself
Drawing a box by hand around the text of a scan is fiddly, and it is worse when you then have to judge whether you left the same amount of air on all four sides. So there is a button that does it: "Find the edges of the ink" reads the page as it is rendered, works out the box that just contains what is printed, and pulls the frame in to it with a small margin of air left around the outside.
It refuses on a blank page rather than cropping it to nothing, and it tells you which page it read. If the result is not quite right you can drag the frame afterwards — it is a starting point, not a decision taken away from you.
What removing the margins costs
Hiding is lossless and instant: the frame becomes the page’s window and nothing in the file is touched. Removing is a rebuild — each page becomes a picture of what was inside the frame, so what was outside is genuinely gone.
The price is the text. Once a page is a picture, the words on it can no longer be selected, searched, or read aloud by a screen reader, and the document stops being any use to anyone who reads that way. This is the trade the panel puts in front of you at the moment you choose, and it is worth knowing before you arrive.
And the part that surprises people: removing the margins usually makes the file BIGGER, not smaller. A picture of a page of text weighs more than the text did. If your reason for trimming was to save space, this is the wrong tool for it, and it is better to hear that here than after the download.
A scan whose margins wander
Paper fed through a scanner does not land in the same place twice, so the white space on page 4 is rarely the white space on page 1. One frame applied to all of them will clip something somewhere.
So the frame can go on every page or on just the one it was drawn on. On a clean export — a report, a slide deck, anything generated rather than scanned — every page is right and is the default. On a scan, it is worth looking at the widest page and framing that one, or trimming the bad pages on their own.
Twelve questions
Questions
Does it find the white space automatically?
Yes. The button reads "Find the edges of the ink": it looks at what is actually printed on the page you are on, pulls the frame in to it, and leaves a little air around the outside. You can adjust the frame by hand afterwards, and on a blank page it does nothing and says so rather than cropping the page away.
Will the file get smaller?
Hiding the margins does not change the size at all — nothing is deleted, the viewer is simply shown a smaller window. Removing them usually makes the file bigger, because each page becomes a picture and a picture of text is larger than text. Trimming margins is for how the document looks and prints, not for what it weighs. Compress PDF is the tool for the weight.
Is the white space really gone, or just hidden?
That is yours to choose, and the two answers are different files. Hidden means the margins are still in the document and can be brought back by anyone who knows how — fine for printing and reading, not fine if something in the margin should not be seen. Removed means rebuilt without them, at the cost of the page no longer being text.
The margins are different on every page of my scan. What then?
Frame the page with the most content and apply that to every page, so nothing gets clipped, and accept a little extra white on the tighter pages. Or trim the awkward pages one at a time — the frame can be applied to just the page it was drawn on.
Is Crop PDF free?
Yes. Free, with no watermark, no account and no daily cap. It runs entirely in your browser, so there is nothing to meter.
Does my file get uploaded?
No. Everything happens in this browser tab, so the file never leaves your device. You can keep the Network tab open while it runs: no request carries your file.
Do I need an account?
No. This tool is exactly the same signed in or out.
Will it add a watermark?
No. The result is your file, unmarked. There is no paid tier that removes something we put there, because we do not put anything there.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. It is the same web page, laid out for a small screen. Nothing to install, no app and no browser extension.
Are there ads, or a queue before the download?
No. No banners, no upsell pop-up, and no invented delay. When the job is done the file is ready.
Does cropping really remove the white space, or just hide it?
By default it hides it. A PDF crop sets the page’s viewing window, so everything outside your frame is still inside the file and anyone opening it with the right tool can bring it back. That is what "crop" means in a PDF, and it is lossless. If you need it gone for good, this page offers that as a separate choice: the pages are rebuilt from pictures of themselves, so the margins are really not there any more, and the text stops being selectable.
Can I crop every page at once?
Yes, and that is the default: draw the frame once and it applies to the whole document. Turn it off and only the page you drew on is trimmed.