How to use Redact PDF
- Choose the PDF.
- Select Find to locate emails, phone numbers, card numbers and more, and add names to find as well.
- Untick anything that should stay, and drag on any page to black out other areas by hand.
- Select Redact, then download the redacted PDF.
Redaction that actually removes the text
The most common redaction mistake is drawing black rectangles over text. The page looks redacted, but the words are still in the file: anyone can select them, copy them, or search for them, and court filings, government reports and company documents have leaked this way for years. This tool removes the text for real. Every page that has a redaction is rebuilt as an image with the black boxes painted in, so nothing that was under a box, and nothing else on that page's text layer, exists in the output file.
Pages without redactions are copied unchanged, so their text stays selectable and searchable. Document metadata such as the title, author and subject isn't carried over, since it often names people too.
Find, review, redact
Select Find and the tool searches every page for email addresses, phone numbers, payment card numbers checked with the Luhn algorithm, IBANs checked with their check digits, US Social Security and UK National Insurance numbers, IP addresses, API keys and passwords in links. Add names, companies or addresses you also want hidden, since names can't be recognised by patterns alone. Each finding is listed with its page, and you can untick anything that should stay visible.
Anything automatic detection can't see, such as a signature, a photo, a handwritten note or a logo, can be blacked out by hand: drag a box over it on the page preview. Select a box you drew to remove it. The preview shows every redaction before anything is applied.
Private by necessity
Documents that need redacting are, by definition, the ones that shouldn't be uploaded to a stranger's server. Here the PDF is read, searched, previewed and rebuilt entirely in your browser, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Good to know
Rebuilt pages are images at 150 dots per inch, sharp enough to read and print, so text on those pages is no longer selectable. If you need it searchable again, run OCR PDF on the redacted file: it can only read what's still visible. Always open the result and check it before you share it.
Questions
- Is the text really gone?
- Yes. Every page with a redaction is rebuilt as an image with the black boxes painted in, so the text, fonts, links and form fields on that page no longer exist in the file and can't be copied, searched or recovered. Simply drawing a black rectangle over text, which many tools do, leaves the words in the file.
- What happens to pages without redactions?
- They're copied unchanged, with their text still selectable. Document metadata such as the title and author isn't carried over to the redacted file.
- Is my PDF uploaded?
- No. Finding, previewing and redacting all happen in your browser, which matters most for exactly the documents people redact.