Crop pages

The Crop Pages dialog box is where you can adjust the visible page area. This can help you create consistency within a PDF composed of pages of different sizes.

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

When you prepare a PDF for printing, you can change the Art, Trim, and Bleed areas for a PDF page in the Crop dialog box. If you want to see indicators of these areas in the document pane, select the Show Art, Trim, & Bleed Boxes option in the Page Display preferences. (In the Preferences dialog box under Categories, select Page Display.)

Crop empty areas around page content

  1. Choose Document > Crop Pages.
  2. Under Margin Controls, select Remove White Margins.

Crop one or more pages

  1. Choose Document > Crop Pages.
  2. In the pop-up menu in the upper left corner, leave CropBox selected, and then adjust values for the Margin Controls: Top, Bottom, Left, and Right.

    A black rectangle in the thumbnail page display shows the adjusted boundaries of the cropped page.

  3. (Optional) One by one, select ArtBox, TrimBox, and BleedBox in the pop-up menu, and adjust the Margin Control values each time. The adjusted boundaries appear as rectangles in the thumbnail page display: red, green, and blue, respectively.
  4. Select other options under Change Page Size, as appropriate for your PDF.
  5. As needed, specify Page Range settings.

Because the Crop property is selected by default, the margin values that you specify determine the final Crop boundary. The dialog box displays each selected property as a differently colored box in the preview area. Select Show All Boxes to preview all properties at once. Select each property that you want to adjust.

Crop a page with the Crop tool

  1. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > Crop Tool.
  2. Drag a rectangle on the page you want to crop. If necessary, drag the corner handles of the cropping rectangle until the page is the size you want.
  3. Double-click inside the cropping rectangle.

    The Crop Pages dialog box opens, indicating the margin measurements of the cropping rectangle and the page to be cropped. You can override these settings or apply other options by making new selections in the dialog box before clicking OK.

Crop Pages dialog box settings

The Crop Pages options specify a selection of options for cropping pages.

The Crop Margin and Margin Control options are as follows:

Show All Boxes
Shows the black, red, green, and blue rectangles indicating the CropBox, ArtBox, TrimBox, and BleedBox on the page thumbnails. 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. If not otherwise specified (for example, in the JDF settings), the crop boundary determines how page contents are positioned on the output medium.

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

TrimBox
Defines the finished dimensions of the page after trimming.

BleedBox
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 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 tool.

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 Crop Pages dialog box by choosing one of the following:

    • Document > Crop Pages.

    • Crop Pages from the options menu on the Pages panel.

  2. Reset the margins to the original dimensions.