Sejda PDF

Add margins

Give pages breathing room for binding or notes.

Drag & drop your files here

Supported: PDF

Files are handled privately and removed automatically. Interface preview - processing is not enabled yet.

About Add margins

Add white space on any side without scaling the content, so nothing is lost in a binder's gutter and there is room to write.

  • Per-side control
  • Mirrored margins for double-sided printing
  • Content never scaled

How to add margins

  1. 1

    Upload the document

    Any page size.

  2. 2

    Set the margins

    Millimeters or inches, per side.

  3. 3

    Apply

    Content stays the same size, the page grows.

A practical guide to add margins

When pages need breathing room

Add margins when the content sits too close to the paper's edge for how the document will be used. The classic case is binding: ring binders, spiral coils and hole punches all bite into the inner edge, and without a generous gutter they swallow text. Margins also help documents meant to be annotated, giving reviewers room to write in the sides, and they rescue pages produced edge-to-edge that would otherwise lose content to a printer's unprintable border. If you are about to bind, punch, staple or mark up a PDF whose layout runs tight to the edge, adding margins first prevents the frustration of trimmed or obscured text.

Grow the page or fit the size

The tool offers two philosophies, and choosing correctly avoids surprises. The default grows the page and leaves your content at full size, which is ideal when legibility is paramount and a slightly larger sheet is acceptable. The scale-to-fit option instead keeps the page dimensions fixed, at A4 or Letter, and shrinks the content a little so the new margin fits inside. Use grow-the-page when the content must not get any smaller, and scale-to-fit when the output has to stay a standard size for a printer or a filing requirement. Preview either way, since even a small size change is worth confirming before you print a stack.

Margins in a print-ready workflow

Margins belong early in print preparation, before steps that depend on the final page geometry. If you plan to add a header, footer or page numbers, add the margins first so that running text has clear space to occupy instead of colliding with body content. For a bound booklet, set mirrored margins so the gutter stays on the inside of every sheet, then handle numbering and any imposition afterward. Margins pair naturally with cropping as its opposite number: crop reclaims unwanted white space, while this tool adds it, so reach for whichever direction your document needs. Keep the original, since the page dimensions change permanently in the copy you download.

Frequently asked questions

Does adding margins shrink my text or content?
No. The content stays exactly its original size, and the page itself grows to make room for the extra white space. That is the key difference from scaling: nothing on the page gets smaller or is repositioned relative to the rest, you simply gain a border around it.
Can I set a different margin on each side?
Yes, every side is controlled independently, in millimeters or inches. That lets you add a wide margin only where you need it, such as extra space on the binding edge, while leaving the other three sides as they are, or you can add space all around evenly.
How do mirrored margins for double-sided printing work?
With mirrored margins, the wide binding edge switches sides between odd and even pages, so it sits on the right for one page and the left for its back. That keeps the gutter on the inside of every sheet once the document is bound or hole-punched, instead of drifting to the outside on alternating pages.
Can I keep a standard page size like A4 while adding space?
Yes. If you must stay on A4, choose the scale-to-fit option, which gently reduces the content so the added margin fits within the original page dimensions. The plain margin mode instead enlarges the page and keeps content at full size, so pick based on whether the final page size or the content size matters more.

Related tools

All tools

Crop PDF

Trim margins or change the page size.

Add page numbers

Number the pages, your way.

Header & footer

Add running titles, dates and labels to every page.

Bates numbering

Sequential legal stamping across many files.