Redact a PDF
Hide, censor, strike out: here the covered passage is really removed from the file, not covered by a rectangle. It can no longer be copied, searched or extracted — and the page stays text, never turned into an image.
Free · 100% local — nothing is uploaded- 1Open your PDF.
- 2Drag across the passage to redact — or search for a pattern and strike out every occurrence.
- 3Download: the covered content has really left the file.
How to redact a PDF
Open the document, drag across the passage to black out, and download. What sets this tool apart from almost every other one comes down to a single sentence: the covered characters are taken out of the page’s content stream, not hidden under a rectangle. The passage no longer copies, no longer searches, no longer comes out of a text extraction, and the visible black bar is only a mark. The page stays as text: it is never turned into an image, so the rest of the document remains searchable, selectable and crisp in print — that is the difference from tools that rasterize a whole page to hide three words. A photo or a stamp is blacked out in its own pixels. You can also search for a pattern — a social security number, an IBAN, an email address — and strike out every occurrence in one action, and it can be undone.
Checking that the passage has really gone
Take nobody’s word for it, ours included. Open the exported file in another reader, search for the redacted word, then do a “select all, copy” and paste into a text editor: the passage must appear nowhere. That is the check run by the services that publish expunged documents, and it is the one that has revealed, at more than one firm, black rectangles that only had to be dragged aside.
A bank statement, an ID document, a case file
These are the three documents people come looking for this tool with, and they are exactly the ones that should not be uploaded to an online service in order to protect them. Here the file never leaves the device: nothing goes out, nothing is kept, and the site works even with the connection cut. Think too of the document’s hidden data — author, photo GPS coordinates, attachments, older versions: the Sanitize tool lists them and takes them out, because a perfect redaction is worth nothing if the author’s name stays in the file’s properties.
Frequently asked questions
Is the page turned into an image?
No. The rest of the text stays text — searchable, selectable, accessible. Only the targeted characters are removed, and the character spacing is recomputed so that nothing shifts on screen.
Can I redact every occurrence of a word?
Yes. Search for the pattern — a word, an IBAN, a social security number, an email address — and “Redact all” strikes them out in one action, and can be undone in another.
How can I check the text is really gone?
Open the exported PDF in another reader and search for the word, or copy the whole page: the redacted passage is not there. Objects left orphaned are taken out of the file on export too.
Can I redact a photo or a stamp, not just text?
Yes: on an image, it is the pixels themselves that are blacked out, inside the image, not a rectangle laid over it. Cropping the image will bring nothing back.
What happens to the file’s hidden data?
Redaction works on the pages. Metadata, attachments and photo GPS coordinates live elsewhere in the file: go through the Sanitize tool afterwards, which covers the lot.