Crop PDF pages

You can adjust the visible page area using the Crop Pages tool and the Set Page Boxes dialog box. Cropping pages can help you create consistency within a PDF composed of pages of different sizes.

Crop a page using the Crop tool

Note:

Cropping does not reduce file size because information is merely hidden, not discarded.

  1. Choose Tools > Edit PDF.

    The Edit PDF toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

  2. In the secondary toolbar, select Crop Pages.

  3. Drag a rectangle on the page that you want to crop. If necessary, drag the corner handles of the cropping rectangle until the page is the size you want.

  4. Double-click inside the cropping rectangle.

    The Set Page Boxes dialog indicates the margin measurements of the cropping rectangle and the page to be cropped. You can override the crop area you defined, by making new selections in the dialog box before clicking OK.

  5. To apply these settings to more pages, set the page range or select All under Page Range.

  6. Select OK to crop the page or pages.

Margin Control options in the Set Page Boxes dialog box

The Set Page Boxes dialog box contains options for cropping pages. The Margin Control options are as follows:

Show All Boxes (Acrobat Pro)

Shows the black, red, green, and blue rectangles indicating the CropBox, ArtBox, TrimBox, and BleedBox on the preview. When two (or more) margins coincide, only a colored line appears.

CropBox

Defines the boundary for the contents of a page when it’s displayed or printed.

ArtBox (Acrobat Pro)

Defines the meaningful content of the page, including white space.

TrimBox (Acrobat Pro)

Defines the finished dimensions of the page after trimming.

BleedBox (Acrobat Pro)

Defines the clipping path when the page is printed professionally to allow for paper trimming and folding. Printing marks may fall outside the bleed area.

Constrain Proportions

Locks the proportions of the crop so that all margins are at the same distance.

Remove White Margins

Crops the page to the artwork boundary. This option is useful for trimming the edges of presentation slides saved as PDFs.

Set To Zero

Restores the crop margins to zero.

Revert To Selection

Reverts to the crop margin selected with the Crop Page tool.

Remove white margins

  1. Choose Tools > Print Production.

    The Print Production toolset is displayed in the right pane.

  2. Click Set Page Boxes.

    The Set Page Boxes dialog box is displayed.

  3. Under Margin Controls, select Remove White Margins.

  4. To remove white margins from more pages, set the page range or select All under Page Range.

Undo cropping

Cropping a PDF does not reduce file size because information is merely hidden, not discarded. By resetting the page size, you can restore the page and its content to its original condition.

  1. Open the Set Page Boxes dialog box by choosing Crop Pages from the Options menu  in the Page Thumbnails panel of the navigation pane.

  2. Select the Set To Zero button to reset the margins to the original page dimensions.

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