How to Remove PDF Margins for eReader
While the PDF format is flexible in terms of transferring between computers and operating systems, it wasn't built with e-books in mind. As such, it renders and converts poorly; in the FAQ for his acclaimed e-book management software, Calibre, Kovid Goyal wrote, "PDF documents are one of the worst formats to convert from. They are a fixed page size and text placement format." When it comes to removing the margins from a PDF file, the simplest program available is Briss. You can also use Calibre to convert PDF files to a more compatible, margin-less format.
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Instructions
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Cropping With Briss
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Download Briss from sourceforge.net/projects/briss. Briss is available for Windows, OS X and Linux computers. Once the program is downloaded, open it. Windows users can run the "briss.exe" file, while Linux and OS X users should run "java -jar briss-0.0.13.jar" in a terminal window.
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Go to "File" > "Load File" in the Briss window. Select the PDF file that you want to crop. Briss will ask if you want to exclude any pages from the cropping; if you want to crop every page of the file, click "Cancel." It may take a few minutes for your PDF file to load, depending on the length and complexity of your PDF file.
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Observe the blue box -- this represents where Briss predicts the crop should take place. You can change the size of this box by dragging the darker blue boxes in the corners. Don't worry about the garbled appearance of the document -- this is an overlay of all the contents of the file.
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Go to "Action" > "Preview" to check the cropping of the file. If the crop is where you want it, go to "Action" > "Crop PDF." Choose a file name and save location for your file.
Converting With Calibre
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Download Calibre from Calibre-ebook.com and install it on your computer; it's compatible with Windows, Linux and OS X. Once you've installed the program on your computer, open it.
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Click the "Add Books" icon on the toolbar and select the PDF you want to convert. If you want convert multiple PDF files, you can add them all at once by holding down the "Ctrl" key while selecting documents.
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Select the book or books you want convert and click the "Convert Books" icon on the toolbar. Select the output format you want to use in the upper right corner. Calibre supports popular formats, such as EPUB and MOBI.
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Select "Page Setup" on the left panel. Change the margins to what you want; if you don't want any margins between the edge of your page and the text, set each box to zero. Click "OK" to start the conversion.
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Copy the converted files to your e-reader. You can do this in Calibre via USB if it's supported by your e-reader.
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Tips & Warnings
When opening Briss, OS X and Linux users should change their directory in the terminal to the location of the Briss files.
References
Resources
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