Crop, Resize and Rotate modules

Three complementary modules let you adjust the size or the orientation of a document's pages. All are available from the Editing category of the Dashboard, except resizing, which sits in Organization.

Crop

The Crop module removes a border from each page according to precise margins, without modifying the content pixels: it is a clipping of the visible area through the PDF MediaBox. The module is available from the Editing category of the Dashboard.

Setting the margins

Four numeric fields let you enter the desired trim, expressed in points (the native PDF unit — 72 points = 1 inch = 25.4 mm):

Top, Bottom, Left, Right — as you see them: on a rotated page, “Top” is the displayed top.

Values must be positive or zero. Both French (comma) and English (full stop) decimal separators are accepted.

If the combination of margins would reduce the page to less than 20 points in width or height, the module shows the message "The margins set are invalid or too large for the current page" and the apply buttons are disabled.

Applying the crop

Two scopes are offered:

Apply to page: crops only the page currently displayed. Handy for handling pages with heterogeneous dimensions (cover, insert, and so on).
Apply to all: uses the same margins for every page of the document. To be preferred when all pages share the same original format.

The preview on the left is refreshed immediately. To confirm the operation, use the Done button in the footer; Back closes the module without applying.

Note: cropping is non-destructive at content level — pixels are simply hidden outside the new page box. To make the clipping permanent at content level (for example before sending to a printer), go through the Flatten module after cropping.

Resize (Page Scaling)

The Resize module transforms the physical format of the pages, for example to make a document containing A4 and A3 sheets uniform, or to adapt a US Letter file to an A4 printer. It is available from the Organization category.

Target format

The Target format menu lists the supported standard formats:

A3 (297 × 420 mm);
A4 (210 × 297 mm);
A5 (148 × 210 mm);
US Letter (8.5 × 11 in);
US Legal (8.5 × 14 in).

Scaling mode

Three strategies are offered in the Scaling menu:

Fit (keep proportions): the original page is centred within the target format, keeping its height/width ratio. White margins are added on two sides if needed.
Fill (crop edges): the page is zoomed to fill the target format entirely. The overflowing edges are trimmed.
Stretch (distort): the page is stretched until it occupies the target format exactly, at the cost of possible distortion of the proportions.

Pages to resize

Three scopes are available:

All pages: applies the resize to the whole document;
Current page: handles only the page currently displayed;
Specific pages: a text field appears for entering a list of numbers and ranges (e.g. 1, 3-5).

Applying

The Apply button starts the processing. While the computation runs, the button label becomes "Processing…" and the panel is disabled. Once finished, the module closes and the updated document is integrated into the Dashboard awaiting saving.

The document is rebuilt page by page: the resized pages are flattened (their annotations become content, and a rotated page is scaled in its displayed orientation), the pages outside the selection are copied as they are, and the document metadata and outline are preserved.

Rotate

The Rotate module lets you turn one or more pages in 90° steps. It is available from the Editing category (shortcut ⌘R).

Rotation scope

A segmented selector offers four scopes:

Current page (default);
All pages;
Even pages (2, 4, 6…);
Odd pages (1, 3, 5…).

The Even and Odd scopes are particularly useful for correcting a scan where every other side was fed in upside down.

Actions

Three buttons then perform the rotation:

Left 90°: anticlockwise rotation;
Right 90°: clockwise rotation;
Flip 180°: a half-turn rotation.

Each action is applied immediately to the pages designated by the chosen scope. You can chain several rotations to combine angles.

Rotating from other modules

A quick rotation is also available:

from the Reorder module, through the −90° / +90° buttons or a right click on a thumbnail;
from any editing view, through the ⌘L (rotate left) and ⌘R (rotate right) shortcuts, which act on the current page.

Confirming and history

The three modules operate in unified editing mode: each application creates a checkpoint in the History, and an Undo / Redo button is available at the top of the sidebar to step back. Changes stay pending until they are explicitly saved through the Save button on the Dashboard (⌘S).

Note: cropping, resizing and rotating modify the page boxes (MediaBox / CropBox) or rewrite the pages into a new document. Hyperlinks and the table of contents stay valid after these operations, except for hyperlinks based on absolute coordinates, which may move outside the new visible area.

Screenshots

2 screenshots — click to enlarge