Editing a PDF in Preview - add margins?

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Level 1

8 points

Editing a PDF in Preview - add margins?

Hi there,

I am wondering if there is a way to add a margin to a pdf document. Essentially I just need to increase the amount of white space on the lower margin. But I'm not picky about it, so if I have to increase the blank space on all 4 sides of the document that is ok too.

I've searched the internet and these forums and I've only found instructions for how to achieve this in adobe - which I don't have, and don't want to pay for. I'm really hoping that preview can achieve this for me!

Thanks for any ideas you can send my way.

(I hope I've chosen the best community to post in - it was hard to choose because Preview isn't mentioned specifically by any of them :/ )

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.2), Preview

Posted on Jan 18, 2017 11:56 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

kellyt8965

Level 1

4 points

Dec 4, 2017 12:25 PM in response to kyleleen

The fastest way I found to do this is change the scale when printing. This gives you a large area of white around the whole document.

As you change the scale, the preview to the left will update as well.

You can also choose 'save as a pdf' from the box on the bottom left hand side of the screen.

Click PDF on the bottom left hand corner to get a drop down menu.

Then choose save as PDF. This will save the scaled down document.

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,676 points

Dec 4, 2017 1:16 PM in response to kyleleen

Pages can only handle a single-page, or fractional-page PDF art or text object dropped on it. If you drag/drop a multi-page PDF, only the first page is included in the displayed (and printed) Pages document.

Preview is not a PDF editor.

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Answer 3

kyleleen Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 18, 2017 12:35 PM in response to dialabrain

That is a good point, I had been doing that. I encountered a problem with the pdf images disappearing from the pages doc - they were still there but invisible. I called applecare and the tech told me that pages wasn't created to handle that use and that I should use a .jpg instead. When I tried that the image quality was abismal. So I was trying to find a workaround to avoid the trouble I was having with pages and still preserve the image quality. The pdf's I'm working with are map documents that I've exported from ArcMap and I'm trying to include them in a report so I was trying to create a little space to give them figure labels - sigh! The applecare tech told me he'd never heard of anyone trying to put a pdf in a pages doc - which I found pretty astonishing. You have at least proved that I'm not crazy! 😝 hahah

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

136,655 points

Jan 18, 2017 12:46 PM in response to kyleleen

As far as the pdf images disappearing, all I did was test once and export the whole document as a PDF. I didn't try to save it as a Pages document so I don't know if they disappear or not. I can I suppose.

FWIW, Preview isn't a PDF editor but a reader. Same as Adobe Reader which is free. Adobe Acrobat is a PDF creator and not so free. lol

No, you're not crazy. 😁

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Answer 5

kyleleen Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 18, 2017 12:49 PM in response to dialabrain

No worries about testing the save v. not saved. It seems to only happen occasionally, I have 10+ such pages document and only encountered the problem with 2 after I'd been editing them all for a couple of months so I think your solution is the most practical and I may just occasionally need to deal with the disappearing act. Thank you for your help!

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Answer 6

dialabrain

Level 10

136,655 points

Jan 18, 2017 12:58 PM in response to kyleleen

FWIW, if you have Pages, one thing you could do is set up a template with the margins you want then drag the PDF into it and resize it to fit the margins.

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