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Selecting and Cropping

Selecting Part of a Page

  1. Choose the Select Rectangle Tool select rectangle from the Editing bar (Command+4).
  2. Click and drag over a portion of the document. This area can contain text or images.
  • Drag at the side or corner of the selection box to resize it.
  • The dimensions of the box are given along each side. Select which units are used in Preferences > Editing > Measurement units. (User Preferences).
  • Move the mouse inside the box and the cursor turns into a Hand move tool. Use this to reposition the selection box on the page.
Once this area is selected, it can be copied and pasted to another page or to another PDF document. It can also be used to crop the page or to create a new PDF document.

Cropping a Page or Document

  1. Choose the Select Rectangle Toolselect rectangle from the Editing bar.
  2. Click and drag the mouse to select a rectangular area of your PDF.
  3. Choose Edit > Crop Page To Selection.
Crop every page in a document by holding down the Option key when in the Edit menu. The option to Crop Page to Selection turns into Crop Document to Selection.

Creating a New PDF from a Selection

  1. Choose the Select Rectangle Tool select rectanglefrom the Editing bar (Command+4).
  2. Click and drag the mouse to select a rectangular area of your PDF.
  3. Choose File > New > From Selection (Command+Shift+N).

Exiting a Crop Selection

Once you have a selection, but want to leave the selection without taking any action, choose one of the other selection tools, like the Edit tool (Command+2).

Last updated: July 29, 2025