# When I try to crop single character pdf using “pdfcrop” cropped pdf is not valid

I try to crop the PDF file using the command pdfcrop --hires 1525503522236.pdf 1525503522236_cropped.pdf I get the cropped PDF, but the cropped PDF file is not valid when opened in InDesign or Acrobat. This problem only occurs when the PDF file has only a single character (i):

• the above figure is pdf before crop – jagannathan jothi May 5 '18 at 7:31
• i get the following error when open the cropped pdf in acrobat **The dimensions of this page are out of range. Page content might be truncated. ** – jagannathan jothi May 5 '18 at 7:36
• @egreg PDF/PostScript units are points with 72 points = 1 in. Thus, 3 units = 3 bp = 3.01125 pt (TeX points). – Heiko Oberdiek May 5 '18 at 10:30
• @egreg 0.04in is annotated with "approximately" in the reference. The exact value is 0.0416666... in. – Heiko Oberdiek May 5 '18 at 10:41

The reason can be a too small media size, see the comments to the question. The PDF reference says in "Appendix C.2 Architectural Limits":

The minimum page size should be 3 by 3 units in default user space; the maximum should be 14,400 by 14,400 units. In versions of PDF earlier than 1.6, the size of the default user space unit was fixed at 1/72 inch, yielding a minimum of approximately 0.04 by 0.04 inch and a maximum of 200 by 200 inches. Beginning with PDF 1.6, the size of the unit may be set on a page-by-page basis; the default remains at 1/72 inch.

I have some doubts that unit changes of PDF 1.6+ are supported by all the PDF viewers. Therefore, I suggest a different workaround, the procedure:

1. The image can be scaled:

a) TeX level with \mag, for example:

\mag=10000 % permille
\documentclass[border=2pt]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\textit{i}
\end{document}


b) Create a TeX document that includes the scaled image:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\includegraphics[scale=10]{uncropped.pdf}
\end{document}

2. Then, the image can be cropped:

pdfcrop --hires --margin .1 scaled-uncropped.pdf cropped.pdf


The bounding box depends on the resolution (curves, sharp corners). Therefore, I have added a safety margin to avoid that some pixels are cropped. Adapt to your needs.

3. Finally, the cropped image can be included with the reverse scale factor:

\includegraphics[scale=.1]{cropped.pdf}

• \mag=10000 give big font size pdf. Actual font size pdf not generated. I used 9.5pt as font size and 11.5pt is a leadding – jagannathan jothi May 25 '18 at 6:23