Redact PDF

Why Can a Black Rectangle Leave PDF Text Exposed?

A PDF can store text, images and shapes as separate drawing instructions. Placing an opaque rectangle above a sentence may hide its appearance while leaving the sentence intact below that shape. Copying and pasting text, searching the document or removing the rectangle in an editor can reveal the words. A visual cover is therefore different from removing the underlying information. Renaming a file or flattening ordinary annotations does not by itself establish that hidden text has been removed.

Redact PDF uses a different workflow: it renders each page into an image, paints the selected regions directly into those pixels, and builds a new document from the resulting images. It does not copy the original PDF objects into the output. This also removes underlying text from areas you did not mark, although their visible appearance remains readable in the page image. Your responsibility is to mark every visible occurrence that should no longer be readable, including headers, repeated footers and small print.

How Do You Find and Review Sensitive Content?

Choose one PDF up to 100 MB. Password protected files require the correct password, which is passed to the local page renderer. Enter a literal search term under Find & redact or select the Email, Phone, IBAN, Card number or Date preset. Match case distinguishes uppercase and lowercase letters for custom text, while Whole word restricts matches at word boundaries. Mark all matches adds editable boxes and reports the number of matches and pages. Running another search adds boxes rather than clearing your existing work.

Search is an aid to review, not a guarantee of completeness. A document may contain an image of text, incorrectly encoded characters, unusual fonts or a reading order that differs from the visible layout. Scanned pages without a text layer cannot be searched by this tool. There is no optical character recognition step. Draw boxes over those areas manually, and inspect every page even if the reported match count looks plausible. Cover whole characters with a small margin so that edges do not disclose part of a word.

You can drag to draw a box or focus the page surface and press Enter to create one using the keyboard. Focus a box to move it with arrow keys, resize with the keyboard controls or delete it. Undo and Redo apply to region edits, and Clear page removes boxes on the current page. Repeat this page's boxes copies normalized positions to all pages or a range such as 1-3,5. Pages with different layouts may need individual adjustments after repeating boxes.

What Changes When Pages Become Images?

Choose black or white fill, then select 150, 200 or 300 DPI. The default is 200 DPI with JPEG page images. JPEG usually makes a smaller document, while PNG avoids lossy image compression. Higher resolution retains more fine detail but increases processing cost and may make the file much larger than the original. The estimate is only a guide because image compression depends on the actual page content. A large document warning suggests 150 DPI when the total raster area exceeds 400 megapixels.

The result no longer supports text selection or text search. Links, forms, bookmarks, accessibility tags and digital signatures are removed. Screen readers cannot use an original text layer that no longer exists. Visible form appearances and signature marks are page pixels rather than interactive or cryptographically verifiable objects. Keep the original separately and consider whether the recipient needs an accessible version or an unchanged signed document before replacing it with a rasterized copy.

How Is the Result Checked Before Download?

Apply redactions processes pages sequentially so only one full resolution processing canvas is needed at a time. The progress display identifies the current page, and Cancel stops processing while keeping your boxes. After rebuilding the PDF, the tool scans it for remaining text operators, fonts, attachments, scripts, form fields and hidden metadata. Known creator and producer labels identifying this tool are allowed; source author or other private document properties are not carried over.

The Verified checklist shows each result separately. If a check fails, download is blocked and a warning tells you not to share the file. Passing these structural checks confirms the expected image-only structure, but it cannot judge whether you covered the correct visible information. Review your chosen regions before applying, then inspect the downloaded pages before distribution. Edit again returns to your existing boxes if you need to make further changes.

Where Are Your File and Password Processed?

Your file never leaves your device. PDF reading, text matching, preview rendering, painting, rebuilding and verification run in your browser. No document upload or account is required. The password and editing state stay in memory for the open session, and refreshing or closing the tab loses your work. Save the verified result before leaving. On devices with limited memory, use a lower DPI or split a large document into smaller parts before redacting.