PDF Page Resize & Crop

about this tool

Put pages on a different sheet

Open a PDF, choose the paper — A3, A4, A5, A6, B4, B5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Executive or a size of your own — and each page is put on a sheet of that size. The sheet is turned to match each page, so a landscape slide goes on a landscape sheet, or forced portrait or landscape. By default a page is scaled to fit, up or down, keeping its proportions and centred, so a Letter page on A4 gains a strip of white above and below. It can instead be only shrunk, so small pages stay their size, or kept at its size and centred, in which case a page bigger than the sheet is cut off at the edges and the tool says so. The sizes are ISO 216's in whole millimetres and the North American inch sizes, converted at 72 points to the inch.

Pages are changed in place, not redrawn as pictures. The page's content is scaled as it is, so text stays text — sharp at any zoom, searchable, selectable — and the boxes of links, form fields and comments are scaled with it, so a link still sits over its words, and a form field's text size is scaled too. Bookmarks, links and named destinations that jump to a spot on a resized page are moved to match, so they still land on the same paragraph. Form fields and the document's metadata (title, author, producer, dates) are kept as they were, and so is each page's rotation: a page shown sideways is given the sheet in the orientation it is shown. The content is clipped to what the page showed before, so anything an earlier crop hid stays hidden in the new margins. Choose which pages change — all of them, or 1-3, 5, odd or last — and the rest are left as they were.

Crop margins off

Type a margin for each side of the page as it is shown — or one for all four — and that much is taken off. On a rotated page the margins still mean the top, right, bottom and left you see; the tool works out which edge of the page's own coordinates each one falls on, as a viewer turns it, and that mapping was checked against pdf.js, the engine Firefox draws PDFs with. Cropping sets the page's CropBox, which is what viewers and printers show; tick "shrink the page itself" to cut its MediaBox to the same size too.

Cropping hides; it does not delete. Everything outside the crop is still in the file, and anyone with a PDF editor can bring it back. That makes a crop safe to undo, and it means cropping must never be used to take out anything private.

Trim white margins

For scans, slides and exports with wide white borders, "trim white margins" measures each page instead of asking. Every chosen page is drawn in your browser at two pixels to the point (a page more than 2,000 points on a side is drawn at most 4,000 pixels across, so it is measured more coarsely), and the smallest rectangle holding everything darker than near-white — lighter than 250 of 255 on every colour counts as paper, so text, rules, pictures and pale tints in any colour count as content — is found. The white around it, less the space you choose to keep, is cropped off; change the space kept and it applies without measuring again. Each page is trimmed to its own content, and a page with nothing on it is left alone rather than cropped to nothing. A scan with a grey or speckled background has no white margin to find, so trims little or nothing. Layers a PDF has hidden are not drawn, so what is on them does not count as content.

Limits

An encrypted PDF cannot be changed as it is; unlock it first with Protect & Unlock PDF if you know its password. The file is saved again when a page changes, so a digital signature on it no longer checks out, and the tool says so before you start; a PDF/A file is saved without object streams, but check it with a validator before archiving it. Pages are resized by scaling their content, so a page's proportions never change: there is no stretching to fill a sheet of another shape. Comments and links are moved and scaled with the page but not clipped, so one that sat outside what a page showed can appear in its new margins. For putting pages in a new order, rotating or deleting them, organize PDF does that. Nothing is uploaded.

questions

How do I change a PDF from Letter to A4?

Open it, choose A4 as the sheet and leave the content on “fit to the sheet”. Each page is scaled to fit A4 while keeping its proportions and centred, so a Letter page gains a little white above and below. Text and drawings are scaled as they are, not turned into a picture, so they stay sharp and searchable, and links and form fields move with the page.

Does resizing keep links, form fields and bookmarks?

Yes. Pages are changed in place rather than redrawn, so form fields, bookmarks and the document’s metadata are kept. The boxes of links, form fields and comments are scaled with the content so they still sit over what they belong to, and bookmarks and links that jump to a spot on a resized page are moved to match. The page’s rotation is kept too. The file is saved again, so a digital signature on it will no longer validate.

Is the cropped part deleted?

No. Cropping sets the page’s CropBox, which tells viewers and printers what to show; the content outside is still in the file, and anyone with a PDF editor can reveal it. That is what makes cropping safe to undo, and why it must never be used to remove private information — for that you need a redaction tool that deletes the content.

How does trimming white margins work?

Each chosen page is drawn in your browser at two pixels to the point, and the tool finds the smallest rectangle that holds everything darker than near-white (250 of 255 on every colour) — text, lines, pictures, pale tints, any colour. The margins around it, less the space you choose to keep, are cropped off. A page with nothing on it is left alone rather than cropped to nothing.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. The PDF is read, changed and saved in your browser with pdf-lib, and drawn for the preview and the margin finder with pdf.js; nothing is sent anywhere.