How to redact a PDF
- Choose your PDF. Drag on a page to draw a box, or type a word or number and press Mark all.
- Check every page. You can move a box with the arrow keys, and remove it with the small x.
- Press Redact permanently, review the preview and the check result, then download the new file.
Text search finds selectable text only; for a scanned PDF, draw the boxes by hand. The new file is built from scratch, so document properties such as author and title are not carried over.
Questions
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Redaction happens in your browser. The file never leaves your device.
Is the hidden text really removed?
Yes. Pages with redactions are turned into pictures with black boxes burned in, so the covered text no longer exists in the file. After saving, the tool reopens the new file and checks that no text can be extracted from those pages.
Why can I not select text on redacted pages?
Flattened pages are pictures, which is what makes the redaction safe. Other pages keep their selectable text unless you choose to flatten every page.
Why not just draw a black rectangle in a PDF editor?
A rectangle only sits on top of the text. Anyone can select, copy, or move it to read what is underneath. That is how many redaction leaks happen.
Can I undo a redaction?
Not in the new file. Keep your original PDF, and share only the redacted copy.
Credits
Built on pdf-lib (MIT) and PDF.js (Apache-2.0). OneTooling is not affiliated with these projects.