Redact PDF
Black out text so it is really gone, not just covered. Free, no signup, no upload.
How the redaction works: every page you draw a box on is turned into an image with the boxes burned in, so the text under them is deleted, not covered. Those pages lose their selectable text, and the file usually gets bigger. Pages without boxes are kept as they are. Document info, comments, form fields, attachments and bookmarks are removed.
Drag across the page to draw a box. Boxes are see-through here so you can check they cover the text; they will be solid black in the file. Tap × to remove one. On a phone, switch to Scroll to move around a zoomed page.
No boxes yet.
What this checks: it looks for text that is still in the file but can't be seen, because it sits under a black box, highlight or white-out. This is a best-effort check based on how the page looks, so it can miss things. It also lists all the text in the PDF: if a word you thought was blacked out appears there, it was never removed.
How It Works
Open a PDF and drag boxes over everything that has to go: names, account numbers, signatures, photos. Click Redact & download. Each page with a box is drawn as a picture at the resolution you chose, the boxes are painted solid black into that picture, and the picture replaces the original page. The text, fonts and images from that page are not carried over, so nothing is left underneath to copy out.
Pages without boxes are copied over unchanged and keep their selectable text. The new file is built from scratch, so the document's title, author and other metadata, its comments and annotations, form fields, attachments, scripts and bookmarks are left behind. Everything happens in your browser.
Want to know why a black rectangle isn't enough? Read Can a Redacted PDF Be Unredacted?
Covering Text Is Not Redacting It
A PDF page is a list of drawing instructions: put this text here, this image there, a rectangle on top. Drawing a black rectangle or a black highlight over a word adds one more instruction. The word is still in the list, so select-all and copy, or any text extractor, pulls it straight out.
Real redaction removes the content. Dedicated redaction tools do it by editing the page's instructions. This tool takes the blunt, reliable route: the whole page becomes a flat image, so there are no text instructions left at all.
To test any PDF, use the Check a PDF for hidden text mode above, or open it, select all, copy and paste into a plain text editor. If the blacked-out words appear in the paste, they were never removed. The PDF Text Extractor does the same job for a whole file.
What Gets Removed
| Part of the PDF | In the redacted file |
|---|---|
| Text, images and drawings on a page with a box | Replaced by a flat image of the page |
| Pages with no box | Kept unchanged, text still selectable |
| Title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer | Removed |
| XMP metadata | Removed |
| Comments, notes and other annotations | Removed |
| Form fields, attachments, JavaScript | Removed |
| Bookmarks (outline) | Removed |
| Images and drawings a kept page lists but never shows (often shared with other pages) | Removed |
Limits Worth Knowing
- Redacted pages are images, so they can't be searched or copied. Run OCR afterwards if you need that back.
- Only what you box is removed. If the same name appears on another page, box it there too. The check mode's text list helps you find every copy.
- A PDF that needs a password to open has to be unlocked first, for example with the PDF Password Remover. A PDF that opens freely but has editing restrictions can be redacted, but every page becomes an image.
- Pages without boxes are copied as they are, including anything already hidden on them. Run the check mode on the original to spot that.
- A page without boxes is turned into an image too if it shows filled-in form fields, stamps or drawn comments (so they don't vanish), or if it reuses drawing instructions from a page you redacted. The summary after download lists these pages.
- Digital signatures, links, and tagged-PDF (accessibility) structure are not kept in the new file.
- Very large pages are drawn at a lower resolution so they fit in the browser's memory; the page will say when that happens.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn't drawing a black box over text redact a PDF?
A black rectangle or highlight is just another thing drawn on top of the page. The text underneath is still stored in the file, so anyone can select it, copy and paste it, or extract it. Real redaction has to delete the text itself, not cover it.
How does this tool make sure the text is really gone?
Every page you put a box on is re-drawn as a picture at 200 DPI or more, the boxes are painted solid black into that picture, and the original page is replaced by the picture. The text, fonts and images that were on that page are not copied into the new file, so there is nothing left under the box to recover.
Will my redacted PDF still have selectable text?
Pages without boxes are kept exactly as they were, with selectable text. Pages with at least one box become images, so their text can no longer be selected, searched or copied. That is the trade-off that makes the redaction reliable. Run the file through OCR afterwards if you need those pages searchable again.
Why is the redacted file bigger than the original?
A page stored as text and fonts is very compact. The same page stored as a 200 DPI picture takes far more space. Choose JPEG instead of PNG for smaller files, or use the PDF Compressor afterwards.
What else does it remove besides the boxed text?
It builds a fresh PDF, so the document title, author, subject, keywords, creator and producer, the XMP metadata, comments and other annotations, form fields, attachments, JavaScript and bookmarks are all left out. Bookmarks matter because their titles can repeat the text you redacted.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The PDF is opened, rendered and rebuilt in your browser with pdf.js and pdf-lib. Nothing is sent to a server, which matters for exactly the kind of document people redact.