PHP PDFcrop is a PHP wrapper for pdfcrop based on PHP WkhtmlToPdf by Michael Härtl. The pdfcrop command must be installed in the system.

Install the package through composer:

composer require bolongo/phppdfcrop

Make sure you include the composer autoloader somewhere in your codebase.

// You can pass a filename or an options array to the constructor
$pdfCrop = new PdfCrop('/path/to/document.pdf');
if($pdfCrop->getError() != null) {
    //Handle error here
}

These are used as options for the pdfcrop shell command. For a better explanation of these options, please see pdfcrop --help.

//Default values
$options = [
    'verbose' => false,//bool
    'debug' => false,//bool
    'gscmd' => 'gs',//string
    'tex-extension' => 'pdftex',//string
    'pdftexcmd' =>'pdftex',//string
    'xetexcmd' => 'xetex',//string
    'luatexcmd' => 'luatex',//string
    'margins' => [0, 0, 0, 0],//array|string
    'clip' => false,//bool
    'hires' => false,//bool
    'ini' => false,//bool

    'restricted' => false,//bool
    'papersize' => null,//string
    'resolution' => null,//string|int
    'bbox' => null,//string|array
    'bbox-odd' => null,//string|array
    'bbox-even' => null,//string|array
    'pdfversion' => null,//string
    
    'original' => null,//string
];

Description

• verbose: Makes the command do a verbose printing.
• debug: Makes the command print debug information.
• gscmd: Specifies the path to the ghostscript command to be used by the command.
• tex-extension: Specifies the tex extension to be used by the command. Value must be pdftex, xetex or luatex. This option is the union of --pdftex, --xetex and --luatex options present in the pdfcrop shell command, in which only one of these must be specified.
• pdftexcmd: Specifies the path to the pdftex command to be used by the command.
• xetexcmd: Specifies the path to the xetex command to be used by the command.
• luatexcmd: Specifies the path to the luatex command to be used by the command.
• margins: Specifies extra margins to the command, unit is bp. If only one number is given, then it is used for all margins, in the case of two numbers they are used for right and bottom.
• clip: Specifies clip support to the command if margins are set.
• hires: Specifies the use of %%HiResBoundingBox instead of %%BoundingBox.
• ini: Specifies the use of iniTeX variant of the TeX compiler to the command.
• original: File to be cropped by the command.

How to set options to a PDFCrop instance:

$pdfCrop = new PDFCrop($options);
$pdfCrop->setOptions($options);

The original option is special, as it can be specified as a member of the array set on the constructor or the setOptions($options) method, as a replacement of the array set on the constructor or directly on the attribute original.

$pdfCrop = new PDFCrop('/path/to/document.pdf');
$pdfCrop->original = '/path/to/document.pdf';

These options are specific to the wrapper. These options can be passed to the wrapper in the constructor or via the setOptions($options) method, mixed with the Command Options.

//Default values
$commandOptions = [
    'binary' => 'pdfcrop',//string
    'tmpDir' => null,//string
    'ignoreWarnings' => true,//bool
    'ignoreOptionValidationErrors' => true,//bool
];
$pdfCrop = new PDFCrop($commandOptions);
$pdfCrop->setOptions($commandOptions);
$pdfCrop->binary = '/path/to/pdfcrop';
$pdfCrop->tmpDir = '/path/to/tmpDir';
$pdfCrop->ignoreWarnings = true;
$pdfCrop->ignoreOptionValidationErrors = true;

Description

• binary: path to the pdfcrop command.
• tmpDir: path to the tmp directory. Defaults to the PHP temp dir.
• ignoreWarnings: prevents the process from throwing exceptions.
• ignoreOptionValidationErrors: prevents the option validation from throwing exceptions (malformed options will be ignored).

new PDFCrop($options) and setOptions($options) will throw exceptions if an option is malformed and the option ignoreOptionValidationErrors is set to false.

$options = [
    'ignoreOptionValidationErrors' => false,
    'tex-extension' => 'im wrong',
];
try {
    $pdfCrop = new PDFCrop($options);
    $pdfCrop->setOptions($options);
} catch(Exception $e) {
    //The detailed error message will be present in the getMessage() method
    $e->getMessage();
}

new saveAs($options) and toString() will throw exceptions if an error presents itself in the command or the saving of the generated file if ignoreWarnings is set to false.

$options = [
    'original' => '/path/to/original.pdf',
    'ignoreWarnings' => false,
];
$pdfCrop = new PDFCrop($options);
try {
    $pdfCrop->saveAs('/path/to/cropped.pdf');
    $croppedPdfContents = $pdfCrop->toString();
} catch(Exception $e) {
    //The detailed error message will be present in the getMessage() method
    $e->getMessage();
}

saveAs($options) and toString() with the option ignoreWarnings set to true will prevent exceptions from showing, but if an error presents itself in the process or saving of the generated file, the method getError() will return a string with the detailed error message.

$options = [
    'original' => '/path/to/original.pdf',
];
$pdfCrop = new PDFCrop($options);
$croppedPdfContents = $pdfCrop->toString();
if($pdfCrop->getError() != null) {
    //Handle error
}
$pdfCrop->saveAs('/path/to/cropped.pdf');
if($pdfCrop->getError() != null) {
    //Handle error
}

Check this library's changelog in here.