Removed, not covered
Pages with boxes are saved as pictures with the boxes burned in, so the text under them no longer exists in the file. Pages without boxes stay exactly as they were.
Redact PDF
Redact a PDF: black out text for good
Hide personal or confidential details before you share a PDF. Draw boxes over anything, or search for a name or number and hide every place it appears. Unlike a black rectangle drawn in a normal editor, the hidden text is really removed: it cannot be copied, searched or uncovered.
- Fast
- Private
- No upload
Drop the PDF to redact here
One PDF file
Your files are processed on your device and are never uploaded.
How it works
Redact PDF in three steps
- Choose a PDFSelect the PDF. Its pages open below, large enough to see the details.
- Mark what to hideDrag over any part of a page to draw a box, or type a name or number and hide every place it appears. Ready-made buttons find emails, phone numbers and long numbers such as account numbers.
- Redact and downloadClick Redact PDF and save the new file. Open it and check it before you share it.
Why use it
Redact PDF with ToolsCampus
Private by design
Documents you redact are sensitive by nature, so they never leave your device. The pages are read, redacted and saved by your browser; nothing is uploaded or stored on our servers.
Find every mention
Search for a name, number or word and every match on every page is hidden at once. Click a match to keep that one visible.
Questions, answered
Redact PDF questions
Can redacted text be recovered?
No. A page with boxes is turned into a picture and the boxes are painted into it, so the text under them is gone from the file. It cannot be copied, searched or found by removing the box.
Why can I no longer select text on redacted pages?
Because the whole page becomes a picture, which is what makes the redaction safe. Pages without boxes keep their text. To make redacted pages searchable again, run the PDF through OCR PDF; the hidden parts stay hidden.
Can I redact a scanned PDF?
Yes, by drawing boxes. A scan has no real text, so searching finds nothing on scanned pages; those pages are marked so you know to draw the boxes yourself.
Is anything else removed?
The new PDF leaves out the document title, author, subject and keywords, and the bookmarks, because these often hold names too. Links and form fields on redacted pages disappear with the text.
Does it find every phone and account number?
It finds the usual formats, but numbers can be written in many ways. Always look through the pages before you share the file, and draw a box over anything that was missed.
Comments
No comments yet. Ask a question or share a tip that helped you.