Cut margins from PDF

[Owl_]

Hi, I have got several ebooks in PDF (I photocopied them and turned to PDF with ABBYY fine reader). They are read by the software so that there's searchable text inside.
Now I want to cut the white margins of the ebooks automatically but without cut the text (they have about 700-800 pages each one). Which's the best way?

[willus]

Try k2pdfopt. Maybe use "trim" conversion mode (see attached image)? Depends on exactly what you want.

[Marinolino]

You should be able to accomplish that in Abbyy Finereader itself, procedure might vary depending on its version.

https://help.abbyy.com/en-us/finereader_sprint/12/crop
under "+ cropping pages ..." hyperlink
https://help.abbyy.com/en-us/finerea...nagingpdfpages

There is also a pdf-cropping thread here
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=83053

Besides an already mentioned k2pdfopt I've been using Briss too.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=briss+pdf
https://github.com/mbaeuerle/Briss-2.0

If you have not been using Koreader app on your Kobo Aura One, you should install it, because of its various pdf margin cropping capabilities and reading modes, including k2pdfopt's reflow mode for the scans.

[Owl_]

Maybe I'm asking something impossible but it's worth a try.

The help page of ABBYY reports:

"Tip: If there are multiple images in your document that should be cropped in the same manner, position the frame on the first page so as to enclose the desired area, hold down the Ctrl or Shift key, select the other images, and then click the Crop button. ABBYY FineReader 12 Sprint will crop the selected images using the dimensions and position of the frame on the first page."

(My issue is in red). I mean that I have scanned images in which the selectable text area do not is in the same manner, position of the frame on the first page all over the book. Then when I cut the margins of the book, several text areas are maimed.

I was searching a software (or an option of the software above mentioned) that automatically detect the wasted space surrounding the text area and cut it off.

[willus]

Originally Posted by Owl_

... I was searching a software (or an option of the software above mentioned) that automatically detect the wasted space surrounding the text area and cut it off.

See my first post in this thread.

[Owl_]

Originally Posted by willus

Try k2pdfopt. Maybe use "trim" conversion mode (see attached image)? Depends on exactly what you want.

Tried, the "auto crop" option does what I needed. Unfortunatly many pages have flows inside the white margin that have been detected by the software as a limit where the cut falls. Final result: some margins are cut, others no.
But maybe I have not the necessary skill to handle well the program

[willus]

If you're using the Windows GUI, there is an area where you can graphically select a box that will trim over multiple pages. This might help you avoid having to use the "autocrop" option, which doesn't always work quite right. See the attached screen shot.

The autocrop option (-ac) also has a numerical setting which tells it how aggressive to be. You could try varying it. It depends on your document. If you could post a few sample pages that would help.

[Owl_]

Originally Posted by willus

If you're using the Windows GUI, there is an area where you can graphically select a box that will trim over multiple pages. This might help you avoid having to use the "autocrop" option, which doesn't always work quite right. See the attached screen shot.

The autocrop option (-ac) also has a numerical setting which tells it how aggressive to be. You could try varying it. It depends on your document. If you could post a few sample pages that would help.

I did many tries. The file I obtained could be well but for many pages with one or more white margins kept.

The final file has a too big a size (100 MB...). See screenshot of the option I used.
Could you attach a screenshot of the GUI with the right options to enable?

PS: I'd like to get a text area only with a margin of only 2 mm around if possible.

[Marinolino]

Here is your test.pdf (images were OCR-ed using Abby Finereader, but with margins left uncropped on purpose) together with two cropped pdfs, using Briss (test_cropped) and k2pdfopt (test_k2pdfopt).

It takes less than a minute (loading, cropping and saving) for both apps if we are familiar with the procedure.

In k2pdfopt we should use trim button (as you did), but together with the graphical mode (for adjusting the cropping rectangle using a mouse/trackpad) and with 0.2 cm blank margin added in the "additional option" field, as shown on the picture (the first box, in the "Crop areas" section, should be checked and the blue button "Select" to be clicked on, for the cropping window to appear).

In Briss (ver. 0.9) we have to load the pdf (using File menu, clicking on OK button when asked whether to exclude/include some pages) and then just to adjust those two blue rectangles (representing a separated & stacked odd and even pages) as close to the text as desired on all the sides, we can then use a preview capability or immediately use a "crop" command under the "Action" menu.

We can also spare ourself some time and have exactly the same size of rectangles by using copy/paste function e.g. by copying the first rectangle, after we have adjusted the first rectangle as desired.

right-click on the second rectangle (right page), and choose "delete rectangle"
right-click on the first rectangle (left page), and choose "select/deselect rectangle" and then after right-clicking on the selected rectangle choose "copy selected rectangle"
right-click on the right (empty) page, choose "paste rectangles" and then move it (position it) over the text as needed.

As k2pdfopt, Briss can also be used for an easy & quick column cropping in multi-column pdf documents or for splitting double-paged (two-page) pdf scans.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=315771

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Here are some free pdf cropping tools/editors:

https://pdf.iskysoft.com/edit-pdf/cr...-for-free.html

http://www.pdfscissors.tools
online and offline versions, but without valid certificate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOzh1ixHLa8

There are also quite a few free online services but I've not tried them out on the bigger pdf files (we can split our pdf files if they accept only 50 or 100 pages per pdf file):

https://deftpdf.com/crop-pdf
https://www.sejda.com/crop-pdf
https://avepdf.com/en/crop-pdf
https://pdfresizer.com/crop