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Change PDF Page Size

Local

Rescale PDF pages to A4, Letter, Legal, A3 or A5

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Change Page Size
Local
Tool Details
Input formatsPDF
Output formatPDF
Max file size100 MB
Max files1
ProcessingLocal
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Privacy First

Your files are processed entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to any server.

How do I change the page size of a PDF?

Add the PDF, choose A4, Letter, Legal, A3 or A5, and convert. Every page is scaled uniformly onto the new size and centred, so the aspect ratio is kept and nothing is stretched or cut. The content is transformed rather than redrawn, which means the text stays selectable and vector artwork stays sharp at any zoom. Orientation follows each page by default, so a landscape page does not get squeezed onto a portrait one.

About the Change PDF Page Size

Put every page of a PDF onto a standard paper size. Choose A4, Letter, Legal, A3 or A5, and each page is scaled uniformly to fit inside the new page and centred, so nothing is stretched or cut off. The content is transformed rather than redrawn: text stays as text you can select and search, vector artwork stays vector, and an embedded photo keeps the pixels it already had. Pages that carry a quarter-turn rotation are handled the way a reader displays them, so a landscape scan lands on a landscape page. Annotations — links, highlights, comments — are scaled and moved with the page they sit on, and bookmarks, page labels and document metadata are carried through untouched. Interactive form fields keep their values and their new position, but a reader may need to regenerate their appearance before the text inside them looks right at the new scale. Choose "Keep original scale" instead when the drawing must not be resized at all; anything falling outside the new page boundary is then no longer visible, and the result message says how many pages that affected.

  • Make a mixed document print cleanly by putting A4 body pages and Letter appendices onto one size, instead of letting the printer scale each one differently.
  • Meet a submission rule that names a page size — a court filing, a journal template, a print shop’s spec — without re-exporting from the original application.
  • Turn a document laid out for US Letter into A4 for a European printer, or the reverse, with the whole page scaled uniformly so nothing is cropped.
  • Enlarge a small-format PDF onto A3 for a poster or a plan review, keeping the text selectable rather than blowing up a screenshot.

How to use the Change Page Size tool

  1. 1

    Upload PDF file

    Select PDF file from your device or drag file into the upload area.

  2. 2

    Choose settings

    Choose settings such as New page size, Orientation, Content before processing.

  3. 3

    Change page size

    Run the Change Page Size tool to create the PDF output.

  4. 4

    Download the result

    Download the finished file. The original file stays on your device and is not uploaded.

What is the difference between resizing a PDF and cropping it?

Cropping moves the boundary and leaves the drawing where it was, so a crop makes the page smaller by hiding the edges. Resizing moves the boundary and the drawing together: the content is scaled to the new page and centred on it, so the whole document is still visible at a different size. Use Crop PDF to cut a scanner edge or a stale footer off the border. Use this tool when a printer, a court or a template demands a specific stock and the pages you have are the wrong one.

Does resizing lose quality, the way an image resize does?

Not for text or vector content. A PDF stores those as instructions rather than pixels, and scaling changes the matrix those instructions are drawn under, so a letterform enlarged onto A3 is redrawn by the reader at the new size and stays crisp at any zoom. The text layer is untouched, so search, selection and copy all still work. A photograph placed on the page is the exception in the usual way: its pixels are unchanged, so enlarging the page spreads the same pixels over more paper and enlarging a low-resolution scan a long way will show it.

What happens to links, comments and form fields?

Annotations move with the page. Links, highlights, comments, stamps and ink drawings are scaled by the same factor as the content and shifted by the same offset, so a link still sits on the words it belonged to. Bookmarks, page labels and the document information fields are copied through untouched. Interactive form fields are the one thing to check: they keep their values and their new position, but their stored appearance was generated for the old size, and some readers need to regenerate it before the text inside a field looks right.

Why does a page that was already sideways come out correctly?

Because the rotation a page declares is read before anything is measured. A PDF page can carry a quarter-turn that the reader applies after the page boundary, which means the size stored in the file and the size you see are transposed. Fitting is judged on the displayed size, and the new boundary is written the other way round for a turned page, so a landscape scan lands on a landscape sheet instead of being shrunk to fit the short edge. Choosing Portrait or Landscape explicitly overrides that for every page.

Are my files uploaded when changing a PDF page size?

No. The document is opened by pdf-lib inside this tab, each page’s boundary and transform are rewritten in memory, and the new file is handed straight back to you. Nothing is sent anywhere, which is worth knowing for the documents that most often need a specific page size: filings, contracts, tender responses and anything going to a print shop under an NDA.

How to do this offline, on the command line

Rescaling pages onto a standard stock is one of the few PDF jobs Ghostscript does in a single documented command.

Ghostscript

macOS: brew install ghostscript · Debian/Ubuntu: apt install ghostscript

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dFIXEDMEDIA -dPDFFitPage -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sOutputFile=a4.pdf input.pdf

-dFIXEDMEDIA forces every page onto the size named by -sPAPERSIZE, and -dPDFFitPage scales the content to fit it. Drop -dPDFFitPage to change the page boundary without rescaling the drawing, which is what "Keep original scale" does here. Ghostscript rewrites the whole file, so check the output before discarding the original.

pdfjam

Ships with TeX Live · macOS: brew install --cask mactex · Debian/Ubuntu: apt install texlive-extra-utils

pdfjam --outfile a4.pdf --paper a4paper input.pdf

A wrapper around the LaTeX pdfpages package. It preserves text and vectors the same way, but needs a TeX installation, which is a large dependency for one resize.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the text still selectable after resizing?
Yes. The page content is transformed, not re-rendered, so the text layer is exactly the one that went in — it is simply drawn under a different matrix. Search, selection and copy all keep working, and the file does not turn into a picture of itself.
Will the content be stretched to fill the new page?
No. The scale is uniform in both directions, so the aspect ratio is preserved and the page is centred on the new size. When the old and new proportions differ — Letter onto A4, for example — the result has a slightly wider band of white space on two sides rather than distorted text.
What does "Keep original scale" do?
It changes the page boundary without touching the drawing: the content is centred on the new page at exactly the size it already was. Anything that falls outside the new boundary is no longer visible, and the result message says how many pages that affected, so this is the option to pick only when the drawing must not be resized.
Do my links, comments and highlights survive?
Yes. Annotations are scaled and moved by the same amounts as the page content, so a link still covers the words it belonged to. Bookmarks, page labels and the document information fields are carried through unchanged.
Why do my form fields look wrong at the new size?
A form field stores a pre-generated appearance for the size it was created at. The field itself is scaled and repositioned, and its value is intact, but some readers keep showing the old appearance until they regenerate it — reopening the file in Acrobat or clicking into the field usually does it. Flatten PDF removes the question entirely if the form no longer needs to be fillable.
Is resizing the same as compressing?
No. This changes the paper size the pages are laid out on and does not try to make the file smaller — scaling instructions costs nothing either way. Use Compress PDF when the goal is a smaller file.

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