How to redact a PDF properly

Updated

Drawing a black rectangle over text is not redaction: the words are still in the file and can be copied out. Proper redaction removes what is under the box.

Redact a PDF →

Steps

  1. Open Redact PDF and choose the file.
  2. Drag boxes over everything that must go — names, account numbers, signatures.
  3. Leave “Permanently remove the text underneath” switched on: the document is flattened to images, so nothing under the boxes can be copied or recovered.
  4. Download, then open the result and try to select the redacted area to confirm it is empty.

Also remove the hidden details

Remove metadata clears the author, software and dates stored inside the file — often forgotten, and sometimes as revealing as the text itself.

Tools for this job

Redact PDF · Remove metadata · Password-protect · Flatten to images

More guides

More free PDF tools

PDF to PowerPoint

Turn PDF pages into slides with whole-paragraph text boxes, real lists and native tables.

PDF to Word

Turn a PDF into a Word document that edits like one written in Word.

PDF to Excel

Turn the tables in a PDF into a clean Excel workbook with real numbers and dates.

PowerPoint to Word

Export slide text, tables, pictures and notes to an editable Word document.

Edit PDF

Edit PDFs like a Word document: text, tables, images, links and comments.

PDF Viewer

Open, read, search and print PDF files right in your browser.

Sign PDF

Draw, type or upload your signature and place it anywhere.

Alternate & mix

Interleave the pages of two PDFs, such as front and back scans.

Split PDF

Break a PDF into separate files, by page or by range.

Rotate pages

Turn pages a quarter, half or three-quarter turn.

Flatten PDF

Bake form fields and annotations into the page.

Fix PDF layout

One click to turn pages upright, straighten scans, drop blank pages and even out sizes and margins.

Redesign PDF

Give any PDF a clean, professional design in one click.

Change page size

Resize pages to A4, Letter or Legal, scaling the content to fit.

Text to PDF

Turn .txt notes and Markdown files into a clean, paginated PDF.

OCR PDF

Turn scanned PDFs into searchable — or fully editable — documents.

Redact PDF

Black out sensitive passages — and remove them for good.

Compress PDF

Make the file smaller, with the trade-off you choose.

Repair PDF

Fix a damaged or corrupt PDF that will not open properly.