Redact PDF

What it does

Covering text with a black rectangle is not enough: the words stay in the file and can be copied, searched or recovered. This tool really removes them. Every page with a redaction box is redrawn as an image with the boxes already painted in, so the text, pictures and drawings underneath no longer exist in the PDF. Pages without boxes are copied unchanged, and the title, author and other metadata are removed.

How to use it

1. Choose the PDF file.
2. Draw boxes over what to remove, or type names and tick emails, phone numbers or ID numbers and click "Find and mark".
3. Check every page, then click "Redact and download".

Frequently asked questions

Is the text really removed?
Yes. A page with a box is replaced by an image of that page with the box painted on it, so there is no text, font or hidden layer left to copy or search. You can check it by trying to select or search the redacted words in the downloaded PDF.

Why can't I select text on the redacted pages?
Because those pages became images: that is what guarantees nothing is left underneath. Pages without boxes keep their selectable text. If you need the redacted pages to be searchable again, run them through OCR afterwards.

Does the search find everything?
It finds text that is stored as text in the PDF. Scanned pages, text inside pictures and unusual layouts can be missed, so check every page and draw any missing boxes by hand before downloading.

What else is removed?
The document's title, author, subject, keywords and dates. Bookmarks are not kept, and on redacted pages links, comments and form fields disappear with the rest of the page.

Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The PDF is opened, redacted and saved in your browser; nothing is sent to a server, which matters most for the documents you need to redact.

✏️ Edit PDF
⛶ Crop PDF
🙈 Blur Faces in Photos

Wikipedia — PDF
Wikipedia — Sanitization (classified information)