Draw black boxes or search for words to cover. Each redacted page becomes a picture, so nothing is left to copy. Runs on your device.
To redact a PDF so the text cannot be recovered, cover it with a box and turn the page into a picture, which is what this tool does: it draws each page of your PDF, paints your boxes solid black on that drawing, and builds a new PDF in which those pages are pictures with no text in them. A black rectangle drawn over text in an ordinary PDF editor leaves the text underneath, where it can still be selected and copied. Here the original page is not copied into the new file at all, so a name under a box is not hidden, it is absent. When the file is finished the tool opens it again and counts the text on each redacted page, and tells you if any is found. Pages without a box are copied with their selectable text, unless you choose Flatten all pages, or unless such a page shares a picture or form with a redacted page: a copy of it would carry that shared object along, so it is turned into a picture too and the result lists those pages.
You can draw a box with Add a box on this page and then drag it, resize it from its corner, or move it with the arrow keys and the number fields. Or type words or phrases, one per line, and press Find and add boxes: every match on every page gets a box. Matching ignores capital letters unless you switch on Match case, can be limited to whole words so that Ann does not match Annual, joins text that the PDF stores in separate pieces, and treats what you type as plain text, never as a pattern. In a line such as Dear Jane Doe, set in 12 pt type and 84 pt wide, each of the 14 characters is about 6 pt wide, so Jane Doe starts 30 pt in and its box begins a little before that, with a margin of 2.4 pt on each side. The box position is an estimate from the text, so look at every box on the page before you download. Searching again replaces the boxes a search made and keeps the ones you drew.
Because the page becomes a picture, its sharpness is the DPI you choose: 100, 150, 200 or 300. A Letter page is 1275 by 1650 pixels at 150 DPI, and an A4 page is 2479 by 3508 pixels at 300 DPI. JPEG gives a much smaller file and suits ordinary text and photos; PNG keeps small print crisp but makes the file far larger. The redacted file is bigger than the original and its flattened pages can no longer be searched, selected or read aloud. A very large page may be drawn at a lower DPI than you chose, and the tool tells you.
It cannot find words inside a scanned page, because a scan is already a picture with no text to search; draw the boxes by hand there. It does not touch pages without a box, so a name that appears on such a page stays. The new file does not copy the document properties, bookmarks or attached files of the original, and a page that is kept is copied with its appearance and selectable text, and its links and note annotations are kept only as far as they can be copied on their own: attached files, pop-up windows, actions, page metadata and links to pages that were left out are dropped, and form fields on it may no longer work as fields. Fonts, and pictures or forms that only a kept page uses, stay in the file; a font shared with a redacted page stays too, and holds letter shapes, not your text. A flattened page is a picture, so any form field on it stops working as a field. Whether a redaction meets a legal or court rule is for you to check. Up to 500 boxes and 300 flattened pages are allowed, and a search covers the first 1000 pages.
The pages are drawn, covered and rebuilt by code running in this tab and a background worker, with no upload and no server that receives your file. The words you search for are held only while the page is open: they are not saved in the settings, not put in the address bar and not sent to analytics. The page counts visits with Google Analytics, using rough size groups such as 1 to 10 MB, never a file name or any text from the document. A PDF over 200 MB or over 1000 pages asks you to confirm before it loads.
Add the PDF, draw a box over the text or search for the words, and press Redact. Each page with a box is rebuilt as a picture, so nothing under the black can be selected. A 3-page file with one box on page 2 comes out with 3 pages, 1 of them a picture.
Usually not. A rectangle drawn on top of a page leaves the words under it in the file, and select-all or a text extractor can read them. This tool replaces the whole page with a picture, then checks the new file for leftover text on those pages.
Type the name in the search box, one name or phrase per line, up to 20, and press Find and add boxes. A name split over two lines or two pieces of text is still found. A scanned page has no text to search, so draw the boxes by hand there.
Each redacted page is now a picture, for example 1275 by 1650 px at 150 DPI, and a picture is larger than the text it replaced. It has no text layer, so search and copy do not work on it. Pages with no box keep their text unless they share a picture or form with a redacted page.
150 DPI with JPEG is the default and reads well on screen. Choose 300 DPI for print, or PNG when small print looks soft, and expect a larger file. At 100 DPI the file is smallest but small text can blur.
No. The PDF is processed in your browser and not uploaded. The words you search for are not saved or sent. Only the resolution, format and a few switches are saved in this browser. The page counts visits with Google Analytics, using a size group such as 1 to 10 MB.