About this tool
Drawing a black rectangle in most PDF editors only covers the text. Anyone can still select it, copy it or remove the rectangle. This tool redacts properly: every page with a redaction is redrawn as an image with the black boxes burned in, so the text, images and drawings under the boxes no longer exist in the file.
Pages without redactions are copied unchanged, so their text stays searchable. Tick "Also turn pages without redactions into images" if the document may contain hidden text, comments or layers you have not checked. The new file also leaves out the original title, author and other document properties.
When the copy is ready, the tool opens it again and checks that no selectable text is left on the redacted pages, and tells you the result.
Good to know
- Redacted pages become images, so their remaining text can no longer be selected or searched, and the file may be larger.
- Search finds text stored in the PDF. Scanned pages are pictures, so draw boxes on them by hand.
- Text in a PDF is sometimes split in unusual ways; always check that every match was boxed.
- Form fields, attachments and bookmarks are not copied to redacted pages.
- You are responsible for checking the result before sharing it. For legal disclosure, follow your organisation’s redaction procedure.