PyCropPDF

PyCropPDF is a desktop PDF editor for cropping, rotating, and visually covering PDF pages.

Install

Standalone builds

The latest release provides x86_64 builds for Windows (.exe) and Linux (.AppImage). Both include Auto deskew.

On Linux:

chmod +x PyCropPDF-*-x86_64.AppImage
./PyCropPDF-*-x86_64.AppImage

AppImage normally uses FUSE 2. If FUSE is unavailable, run it without mounting:

APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1 ./PyCropPDF-*-x86_64.AppImage

PyPI

PyCropPDF requires Python 3.11 or later.

python -m pip install pycroppdf

Auto deskew is optional because it adds NumPy and scikit-image:

python -m pip install "pycroppdf[deskew]"

Run

pycroppdf
pycroppdf --input /path/to/document.pdf

Optional arguments:

• --save-to DIRECTORY saves to that directory instead of opening a Save dialog.
• --save-as NAME.pdf sets the output name when used with --save-to. Without it, --save-to writes <input>_modified.pdf.
• --manifest-out PATH sets the JSON provenance-manifest path. By default it is saved next to the PDF as <output>.pycroppdf.json.

Edit a PDF

1. Open a PDF with File > Open PDF... or drag it into the window.
2. Use View to choose one overlay for all pages or separate odd/even overlays.
3. Click a thumbnail image to preview that page. Click it again or use Stack to return. Thumbnail checkboxes select pages for deletion; Ctrl/Cmd toggles and Shift selects a range.
4. Open Rotate, choose all, odd, even, or the previewed page, and enter an angle. Click Preview to inspect a fine rotation, Discard to clear it, or Apply to change the PDF. The 90-degree buttons apply immediately; Auto deskew detects and corrects small angles per page.
5. Click Cover, choose All, Odd, or Even, then draw the cover. In a page preview, This page only overrides that scope. Cover works inside an active crop and before or after applied rotation. New covers are added without replacing existing ones and do not remove the underlying PDF content.
6. Click Crop, draw a crop box, then click Apply Crop. Odd/even positions are independent and their sizes stay uniform. To override one page, preview it, enable This page only, draw its crop box, and apply the crop again.
7. Use Undo or Ctrl+Z to revert one edit. Use Reload to discard all edits and reopen the original PDF from disk. Click Save to export the result.

Crop applies to all pages. Cover uses its selected scope and remains additive. A per-page crop override replaces the stack crop only for that page.

Rotation, Auto deskew, and Cover remain available after cropping. Affected crop boxes follow the rotated pages; fine rotation expands their bounding boxes so cropped content is not cut at the corners. Apply or discard a rotation preview before drawing a cover. For pages with links, annotations, or form fields, the app warns before a fine-angle rotation because some appearances or destinations cannot be transformed exactly.

Tools

Crop boxes and covers change presentation; they do not securely remove content. Larger Auto deskew jobs use one fewer worker than the detected CPU count. Two-core systems use both cores. Small jobs stay in one process to avoid startup overhead.

Provenance manifest

Each save writes a JSON sidecar manifest unless a different path is supplied with --manifest-out. It records source and output SHA-256 hashes, page mapping and deletions, rotations, and crop and cover rectangles.

Development

git clone https://github.com/lukaszliniewicz/PyCropPDF.git
cd PyCropPDF
python -m pip install -e ".[dev,deskew]"
pytest
ruff check .
ruff format --check .

Build a standalone Windows executable with PyInstaller:

python -m pip install -e ".[build,deskew]"
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\build_windows.ps1

Install pycroppdf[deskew] in the build environment to include Auto deskew. The build script supplies the PyInstaller hook needed by scikit-image's runtime package checks. Deskew roughly doubles the executable size.

License

MIT