⬚ Crop PDF

Cropping a PDF trims away unwanted margins or edges so the content sits cleanly on the page. It is useful for tightening scans, removing borders, and focusing attention on what matters.

What cropping a PDF does

Cropping changes the visible area of each page by cutting off the margins you select, without deleting any pages. The underlying content is preserved; you are simply defining a tighter boundary so headers, scan shadows, or wide white space no longer show.

Because cropping adjusts the page boundary rather than erasing content, the trimmed material is hidden rather than destroyed, and you can always re-crop the original if the first boundary was too aggressive. Applying the same crop across every page works well when a document has a consistent layout, such as a scanned book with the same margins throughout. It is the right tool when the pages are fine but the framing around them is not.

When cropping a PDF helps

• A scan has dark edges or uneven margins you want to remove.
• You need to strip a header or footer band from every page.
• Wide margins waste space when the file is viewed on a small screen.
• You want to focus a page on a chart or figure by trimming around it.

How Slate crops pages in the browser

You set the crop area and Slate applies it to your chosen pages, producing a new PDF on your device. Because the work is local, nothing is uploaded. The original file stays intact, so you can re-crop if the first boundary was not quite right.

Tips for a clean crop

• Leave a small margin so text does not touch the very edge of the page.
• Apply the same crop across all pages when they share a consistent layout.
• Crop before compressing so you are not shrinking areas you will discard.
• Preview a couple of pages to confirm nothing important is being cut off.