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Redact a PDF

Black out private text and images for good. Mark areas by hand or search for names, emails and numbers.

or drag and drop PDFs here

PDF documents

Your files stay on your device

  1. 1Add files
  2. 2Adjust
  3. 3Download

How it works

  1. 1Choose your PDF. Every page opens so you can see it.
  2. 2Drag on a page to mark an area, or type words to search for, one per line. You can also switch on emails, phone numbers and long numbers.
  3. 3Look at the marks. Remove any you do not want with the X on the mark.
  4. 4Select Redact PDF. Pages with marks become pictures with black blocks, and other pages stay as they are. Download the file.

What the options do

Words to find
Names, addresses or any text, one per line. Every place the text appears, on every page, gets a mark. Capital letters do not matter.
Emails, phone numbers, long numbers
Finds common patterns for you: email addresses, phone numbers, and long numbers such as card, account and ID numbers. Check the marks, because a pattern can also match something harmless.
Mark by hand
Drag on the page to draw a block over text, a signature or a photo. On a phone, switch off Mark by hand to scroll, and switch it on to draw.
Block colour
Black is usual for redaction. White makes the area look blank.
Picture sharpness
The dots per inch used to redraw marked pages. 200 is clear for reading and printing. 300 is sharper and makes a larger file.
Clear document properties
Removes the title, author and other details stored in the file.

Privacy

This tool runs in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.

Questions people ask

Is the text really removed, or just covered?

Really removed. Each page that has a mark is drawn as a picture with the blocks painted in, and a new file is built from those pictures. The original page, with its text, is not copied into the result. After saving, the tool reads the new file back and checks that no text is left on those pages.

Why did the other text on a marked page stop being selectable?

Because the whole page is now a picture. That is what makes the removal permanent. Pages without marks keep their real, selectable text. If you need the text searchable again, run OCR PDF on the result.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. Everything, including the search, happens in your browser.

Will it find text in scanned pages?

No. Search reads the text stored in the PDF, and a scan has none. Mark scanned pages by hand, which works on any page.

What about bookmarks, comments and hidden data?

Marked pages are rebuilt from pictures, so comments, links and form fields on them are gone. Pages you did not mark are copied, but bookmarks and the document form are not carried over. Document properties are cleared if you leave that option on.

How can I be sure nothing is left?

Open the result, try to select and copy the redacted words, and search for them. Nothing will be found. If a word appears on a page you did not mark, search for it with Words to find so every copy gets a mark.

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