Remove crop marks from a PDF for KDP
Crop marks are the short lines at the page corners that show a printer where to cut. KDP does not want them. Drop your PDF to find and remove them.
If the pages come out cropped wrongly
Your PDF never leaves your browser.It is read and rebuilt on this device. Nothing is uploaded.
Report
| Check | Your file | What the fix does |
|---|
Pages that need a look
First 4 corrected pages
Clean pages, no watermark.trim linesafe area for text
Margins are measured from live text; pictures, lines and shapes that end inside a margin are listed as a note. The fix does not embed fonts, sharpen pictures or reflow text. Rules read from the official KDP help pages on 10 November 2026. This is an information tool, not professional advice, and not an approval.
Why the marks are a problem
KDP's paperback submission guidelines say: "Submitted files should not contain crop marks, trim marks, bookmarks". A file with marks is also larger than the book page, because the marks sit on extra paper outside the page. So the upload usually fails on page size first.
Source: KDP help, Paperback Submission Guidelines. Read on 10 November 2026.
Way 1: export again without them
- Open the download options of your design tool and choose a PDF for print.
- Switch off crop marks. In Canva, one published test (Built&Written, published 11 October 2026) describes a single option named "Crop marks and bleed"; we could not open Canva's own help page to confirm the wording.
- Download, then drop the new file above to check that the pages are now the size of your design.
The catch: if one option adds marks and bleed together, turning it off also removes the bleed. For pictures that should run off the page, the design itself must then be made at the bleed page size.
Way 2: crop the PDF you already have
The fix above crops each page to its trim area. It uses the trim box stored in the PDF when there is one, and the centre of the page when there is not. With Bleed chosen it keeps up to 0.125 in of your real bleed at the top, bottom and outside edge, and nothing at the spine side, which is how KDP lays out a bleed interior. Marks that sit inside the bleed area cannot be told apart from artwork there, so on those pages the bleed is left blank and the report names them. Marks that cross into the page itself cannot be cropped out: the tool then offers no corrected file and says why.
| You choose | Page size after the crop (6 x 9 in book) | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| No bleed | 6 x 9 in | Gone |
| Bleed | 6.125 x 9.25 in | Gone (bleed left blank on pages where marks sit inside it) |
Questions
Will cropping cut off my artwork?
Only what lies outside the trim area (and outside the bleed, if you chose Bleed). That part is cut off by the printer anyway.
The crop is off-centre. What now?
Open "If the pages come out cropped wrongly" under the controls and try the other settings. The first 4 corrected pages are shown before you download anything.
More answers
- Canva PDF rejected by KDPThe four file causes and which ones a fix can repair
- Canva and the KDP gutter marginHow wide the inside margin must be and how to get it
- Remove crop marks from a PDF for KDPTwo ways, with the page size each one leaves
- KDP trim size does not match the PDFRead the two numbers in the error and find the cause
- 6 x 9 in, 300 pages: inside marginThe exact numbers, with a diagram