Redact PDF
Permanently remove sensitive information from PDF documents with true redaction. Unlike simple black boxes that hide but don't delete content, this tool removes the actual text bytes from the PDF — ensuring redacted content cannot be recovered through copy-paste, text extraction, or search. Essential for legal documents, confidential reports, privacy compliance, and secure information sharing.
What does this tool do?
The Redact tool performs genuine content removal from PDFs, not just visual covering. It uses MuPDF's redaction API to permanently delete text content, image regions, and underlying data. When you specify text or regions to redact, the tool removes the content bytes entirely and replaces them with solid fill graphics. The result is irreversible redaction — the removed content cannot be recovered by any means because it no longer exists in the file.
How it works
Using MuPDF's redaction implementation, the tool identifies content to remove through text search patterns or visual region selection. For text redaction, it searches the PDF content streams for matching text, identifies the exact glyph positions, and removes those glyphs while adding redaction annotation graphics. For region redaction, it removes all content within specified coordinates. The tool then rebuilds the PDF structure without the redacted content, garbage-collecting orphaned resources. The final PDF contains only the redaction markers without underlying sensitive data.
Features
- True text removal, not just visual cover-up
- Find and redact every occurrence of any word or phrase
- Preview which pages contain matches before applying
- Black, white, or gray fill color options for redaction marks
- Strips overlapping images and line art in redacted regions
- Content is permanently deleted, not just hidden
- Copy-paste and search return empty for redacted areas
How to use
- 1
Upload the PDF with sensitive content
Drag the PDF containing information you need to redact onto the drop zone. The tool loads the document and prepares the redaction interface.
- 2
Add redaction rules
Type each word or phrase to remove. Click Add Rule for additional terms. The tool finds all occurrences across all pages.
- 3
Preview matches
Review the preview showing exactly which pages contain matches. Verify the search found the correct content before proceeding.
- 4
Choose fill color
Select black (standard), white, or gray for the redaction rectangles. Black is the conventional redaction appearance.
- 5
Apply redaction
Click Apply Redaction. The matched text is permanently deleted from the PDF, replaced with solid fill rectangles. Download the redacted document.
Common use cases
Legal document preparation
Remove privileged information, personal identifiers, and confidential details from court filings, discovery documents, and legal contracts before public filing or distribution.
FOIA and public records requests
Redact exempt information (personal data, law enforcement sensitive details, trade secrets) from government documents before releasing under Freedom of Information Act requests.
Healthcare privacy compliance
Remove patient identifiers, medical record numbers, and protected health information (PHI) from documents for HIPAA-compliant sharing or research.
Financial document sanitization
Redact account numbers, Social Security numbers, income figures, and other sensitive financial data from reports before sharing with third parties.
Tips & best practices
- Always verify redaction by attempting to copy-paste from the redacted area in the final PDF — it should return nothing
- Search for variations of sensitive terms: 'SSN', 'Social Security', 'TIN' may all need redaction
- Review the page preview carefully — sometimes text appears on unexpected pages due to formatting
- Keep your original unredacted file securely — redaction is permanent and cannot be undone