Crop PDF

Scanned documents often have large white borders from the scanner bed. Old forms were designed with generous margins around small content areas. These empty areas make files harder to read on phone screens and waste toner when printed. Cropping removes them so the content fills the page properly.

Leave a few millimeters of margin after cropping — content right at the edge looks cramped and may get cut off when printed. Most printers can't print to the absolute edge of the paper.

Crop before compressing. Blank areas in scanned pages carry pixel data the compressor still has to process. Removing white margins first gives compression more room to work and typically produces a smaller final file.