pdfcrop

TLDR

Automatically detect and remove margins from each page

$ pdfcrop [path/to/input_file.pdf] [path/to/output_file.pdf]

Set margins to specific values for each page

$ pdfcrop [path/to/input_file.pdf] --margins '[left] [top] [right] [bottom]' [path/to/output_file.pdf]

Set uniform margins using the same value for all sides

$ pdfcrop [path/to/input_file.pdf] --margins [300] [path/to/output_file.pdf]

Use a user-defined bounding box for cropping

$ pdfcrop [path/to/input_file.pdf] --bbox '[left] [top] [right] [bottom]' [path/to/output_file.pdf]

Use different bounding boxes for odd and even pages

$ pdfcrop [path/to/input_file.pdf] --bbox-odd '[left] [top] [right] [bottom]' --bbox-even '[left] [top] [right] [bottom]' [path/to/output_file.pdf]

Use lower resolution for faster margin detection

$ pdfcrop [path/to/input_file.pdf] --resolution 72 [path/to/output_file.pdf]

SYNOPSIS

pdfcrop [options] input.pdf [output.pdf]

pdfcrop automatically detects and removes margins from PDF pages using Ghostscript for boundary detection and pdfTeX for the actual cropping. It analyzes each page to find the bounding box of actual content and creates a new PDF with minimal whitespace.
The tool is particularly useful for preparing scanned documents, removing excess margins from journal articles, or optimizing PDFs for e-reader displays. It can process all pages automatically or apply custom bounding boxes.

PARAMETERS

--margins "l t r b"

Add margins after cropping (in bp units)

--clip

Clip content to bounding box

--bbox "l t r b"

Use specified bounding box for all pages

--bbox-odd "l t r b"

Bounding box for odd pages

--bbox-even "l t r b"

Bounding box for even pages

--resolution dpi

Resolution for bounding box detection (default: 72)

--restricted

Turn on restricted mode (safer for web use)

--verbose

Print additional processing information

--debug

Enable debug mode with more output

--gscmd command

Specify Ghostscript command to use

--pdftexcmd command

Specify pdftex command to use

--help

Display help message

--version

Display version information

CAVEATS

Requires Ghostscript and pdfTeX to be installed. Automatic detection may not work well for pages with very light content near edges. Processing time increases with resolution; use lower resolution for faster results when precision is not critical.

HISTORY

Originally developed as part of texlive by Heiko Oberdiek. Widely used in academic and publishing workflows for preparing documents. Now maintained as part of the ho-tex bundle of TeX utilities.