Most of the white border on a printed PDF is already in the file, not added by the printer. Crop that white space off and print with Fit, and a typical document prints about 12% larger. True edge-to-edge printing also needs a printer with borderless mode, because most can't print the outer 1/8 to 1/4 inch of the sheet. Here's how to get as close to no margins as your printer allows.
Only on a printer that supports borderless printing, and only on paper it supports borderless for. Most office laser printers can't put toner right to the edge of the sheet. They have a small unprintable strip on each side, commonly around 3 to 6 mm (1/8 to 1/4 inch), sometimes larger at the bottom. Anything in that strip gets cut off or the page gets shrunk to avoid it.
Many inkjet photo printers can print borderless. They do it by enlarging the page slightly so the image runs past the paper edge, which means a thin sliver of your page gets trimmed on every side. That's fine for photos and posters, less fine for a document with text near the edge.
So "no margins" usually means one of two things, and they have different fixes: you want the printer to use as much of the paper as possible, or you want to get rid of the white border that's already in the PDF.
There are usually two margins stacked on top of each other. One is inside the file: most documents are laid out with about an inch of white space around the text, and that white space is part of the page. The other comes from the print dialog. When you choose Fit, the viewer shrinks the whole page, white border included, so it lands inside the printer's printable area.
Here's how much a full-page PDF gets shrunk by Fit, depending on the printer's unprintable strip:
| Printer edge margin | Letter page prints at | A4 page prints at |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mm (about 1/8 in) | 97.2% | 97.1% |
| 4.2 mm (1/6 in) | 96.1% | 96.0% |
| 6.35 mm (1/4 in) | 94.1% | 94.0% |
A 3 to 6 percent shrink is barely visible on its own. The big white frame people complain about is mostly the margin that's already in the document.
Crop it. The crop PDF tool can detect where the content on each page starts and ends and set the page's crop box just outside it, with 12 points (1/6 inch) of padding by default. Viewers and printers use the crop box as the page size, so the trimmed white space simply isn't there anymore. Nothing is deleted: the trimmed area is still in the file, just outside the visible page.
Once the page is cropped, Fit works in your favor: it enlarges the content to fill the printable area. For a Letter document printed on a printer with a 1/4-inch edge margin:
| Margin in the original | Page size after cropping | Prints at | 11 pt text prints as |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 in | 7.83 × 10.33 in | 102% | 11.2 pt |
| 0.75 in | 7.33 × 9.83 in | 107% | 11.7 pt |
| 1 in | 6.83 × 9.33 in | 112% | 12.4 pt |
| 1.25 in | 6.33 × 8.83 in | 119% | 13.1 pt |
| 1.5 in | 5.83 × 8.33 in | 126% | 13.9 pt |
A document with standard one-inch margins prints 12 percent larger, with 11-point text coming out at about 12.4 points. The scale is set by the height in most cases, because a cropped text page is taller and narrower than the paper, so you'll still see some white at the sides. For more on how cropping works, see how to crop a PDF.
The setting names vary, but every viewer has a "shrink to fit" option and an "actual size" option:
| Viewer | Use for cropped or edge-to-edge pages | Also try |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Acrobat Reader | Page Sizing: Fit | Actual size |
| Chrome | More settings, Scale: Fit to printable area | Fit to paper |
| macOS Preview | Scale to Fit: Print Entire Image | Fill Entire Paper |
Use Actual size when the page already has margins wider than the printer's unprintable strip; you get full-size text and nothing is cut off. Use Fit when content runs close to the edge or after you've cropped. Don't use a custom scale over 100% on an uncropped page, because the edges will be clipped. If you're printing an A4 file on Letter paper, our A4 on Letter guide covers the extra shrink that adds.
It's a driver setting, not a PDF setting, so look in the printer's own preferences: on Windows, Printer Properties or Preferences, and on a Mac, the paper size list or the printer-specific section of the print dialog. It's usually only offered for certain paper sizes and types, often photo paper, and you may need to pick a "borderless" version of the paper size. If you don't see it, your printer probably can't do it.
Many drivers also let you set how far the image extends past the edge. Turn it down if borderless printing is cutting off text near the edges.
A few things show up often. A PDF with mixed page sizes can print some pages small and others clipped; why are my PDF pages different sizes explains how to check. Scanned pages often have dark scanner edges or uneven borders that auto-crop picks up as content, so use fixed margins in the cropper instead. And if a page is rotated in the file, Fit may scale it to the wrong orientation; fix it with rotate PDF before printing. If the job won't print at all, start with why won't my PDF print.
Crop the white border out of the PDF first, then print with Fit (or Fit to printable area) so the content fills the paper. For truly edge-to-edge prints you also need a printer that supports borderless printing, turned on in the printer driver.
Most printers need a small strip of paper to grip and can't place toner or ink right at the edge. That unprintable area is usually about 3 to 6 mm (1/8 to 1/4 inch). Borderless inkjets get around it by printing slightly past the edge of the sheet.
Only slightly, if the page already fills the paper: about 94 to 97 percent on a typical printer. If you've cropped off the white border first, Fit enlarges the page instead, by around 12 percent for a document with one-inch margins.
Not if you leave some padding. The crop PDF tool detects where content starts and adds 12 points (1/6 inch) of padding by default. Cropping only changes the visible page box, so the original area can be restored later.
Fit to printable area shrinks the page so nothing falls in the printer's unprintable edge strip. Fit to paper scales it to the full sheet, so anything at the very edge may be cut off. For documents, Fit to printable area is the safer choice.