How to Resize a PDF

In the digital landscape where efficiency is everything, large PDF files can be a big issue. They take up storage, slow down collaboration, and keep you from emailing, sharing, or even working with them easily.

Despite the PDF being a hard-to-edit format, though, there are ways to go about this depending on how you want to resize your PDF. In this post, we’ll explore three easy ways to resize a PDF:

• Resizing a PDF with compression
• Resizing a PDF by cropping pages
• Resizing a PDF using iOS and Android

So let’s start tackling those large documents and change the size of a PDF while retaining the quality of your content.

How to reduce the size of a PDF

When trying to shrink a large PDF file with rich graphics or lengthy content, you can drastically reduce the size of the PDF online without having to install any other software. With Xodo, the process takes only a few clicks.

1. Open your file in Xodo’s Compress PDF tool.

2. Select your compression level: Low (Larger file size) or High (Smaller file size).

3. Click on Compress.

4. Download the newly compressed PDF to your device, Google Drive, or Xodo Drive.

Depending on the compression level you choose and the size of your PDF, you can reduce its size down to more than half of its original size.

How to crop a PDF and resize pages

Another way to resize a PDF is to resize its page dimensions by cropping your PDF. This can be ideal if you need to eliminate extra margins, white space, or unnecessary page content, reducing the overall size of the PDF itself.

By using a cropping tool, you can change PDF page size dimensions instantly and flexibly from page to page as needed. Follow the steps below:

1. Go to Xodo's Crop PDF tool.

2. Upload your PDF.

3. Click and drag the frame around your PDF page to designate the content being selected.

4. Customize the dimensions of the highlighted area. In the crop dialog, you’ll have a few options:

• Pages to Crop: Select to apply the crop and resize all pages, the current page, or specific pages.
• Units: Designate how your dimensions are measured – Inches (in), Centimeters (cm), and Millimeters (mm).
• Crop Dimensions: Use pinpoint dimensions by value and specify your unit of measurement.
• Presets: You can auto trim your document to either Letter, Half Letter or Junior Legal paper sizes. 

5. When you’re ready, click on the Apply button.

6. Once your file is ready, click the Download button to save your cropped PDF content to your device.

How to change the size of a PDF on iOS and Android

We know that as a digital worker, your PDF tasks can happen anywhere – and you can take Xodo with you. Xodo is cross-platform, which means it's also available as an iOS app and an Android app.

When you have the app installed, you can compress or crop your PDFs anywhere, anytime. Below, we show you the steps for Android, but the apps are similar enough that they can be easily followed on iOS, as well.

Compress your PDF with Xodo on mobile

Here’s how to compress your PDF from your mobile device:

1. Tap on the Xodo icon on your device.

2. Select and open your PDF file from the list of locations provided.

3. Then tap on the Lightning bolt icon in the upper righthand corner.

4. From the More Actions list, select Compress PDF. Add any other files you wish to compress by selecting them or tapping on Add Files at the top of your screen.

5. Tap on Next and select your compression level: Low (Larger file size) or High (Smaller file size).

6. Select whether to save your processed file to Xodo Drive, then tap on the Compress button at the bottom. The PDF will automatically be compressed.

Your newly compressed PDF will be saved automatically to your Processed Files folder or in your Xodo Drive.

Crop your PDF with Xodo on mobile

Cropping down PDF pages using the Xodo mobile app is just as easy as cropping a PDF online. Here’s how:

1. Tap on the Xodo icon on your device.

2. Select and open your PDF file from the list of locations provided.

3. Then tap on the Lightning bolt icon in the upper righthand corner.

4. From the More Actions list, select Crop PDF.

5. Long tap on one of the corners of the cropping frame and start dragging it to customize the area of the page you wish to resize. Do this for each page you want to crop, or simply select the pages you wish to apply the crop to.

6. Once done, tap on the Crop button at the bottom of the screen.

7. Select whether or not to Save your processed file to Xodo Drive, then tap on Finish.

Your newly cropped PDF will be saved automatically to your Processed Files folder or in your Xodo Drive.

Take your PDF productivity up a notch with Xodo

Now that you’ve learned a few tips on how to resize a PDF from anywhere using two different methods online and on your mobile device, it’s the perfect time to take things up a notch.

Resizing your PDF with Xodo is just the start of what you can do. Xodo has more than 30 PDF tools that can help you further edit your PDF by deleting PDF pages, splitting, merging PDF files and more.

Check out what Xodo has to offer and see what it can do for your productivity.