Redact a PDF
Permanently remove text and images from a page.
Or drop one anywhere on this page
What to know about Redact PDF
Most redaction is theatre. A black rectangle drawn over a name leaves the name in the file, where anyone can select it, copy it out, or read it with a parser — which is how redacted court filings and contracts keep getting un-redacted by journalists. This tool takes the marked pages apart and rebuilds them from pixels, so the words under your boxes are not hidden, they are gone. The whole process runs on your own device.
How to redact a PDF
- 1
Open the document
Pick the PDF or drop it here. It is opened on your device and no copy is sent anywhere.
- 2
Draw over what should go
Drag a box across any name, figure or signature. Move between pages and mark as many as you need.
- 3
Remove and download
The marked pages are rebuilt without the covered content, and the finished file downloads straight to you.
What Redact PDF accepts and produces
- Input
- One PDF, and the areas to remove.
- Output
- A PDF with the content genuinely gone from those areas — the affected pages are rebuilt as images so nothing survives underneath.
- Limits
- Redacted pages become pictures, so their text is no longer selectable or searchable. That is the cost of the content actually being removed rather than covered.
- Offline
- Yes, once the rendering engine has been fetched on your first visit.
Why Redact PDF here
- Covered content is removed from the file, not layered over
- Marked pages are rebuilt from pixels so no text fragments survive
- Annotations on redacted pages are dropped, where copies of text often hide
- Pages you do not mark keep their text, links and structure untouched
Where your file goes
Nowhere. This tool runs inside your browser, and the page is served with a policy that forbids it from sending your document anywhere. You can confirm that yourself: open your browser’s developer tools, watch the Network tab, and process a file.
Questions
Is the text really gone, or just hidden behind a black box?
Really gone. Drawing a filled shape over text is what most tools do, and the characters stay in the page's content stream where any parser will read them straight back out. Here the marked page is rendered to pixels with your boxes painted on, and that image replaces the page's contents. There is no text object left to recover.
What happens to pages I did not mark?
Nothing. They keep their original content exactly as it was, so their text stays selectable and searchable and their links keep working. Only pages carrying a box are rebuilt, which is why marking one line on page four leaves pages one to three completely intact.
Why does a redacted page stop being searchable?
Because it becomes an image. Removing one phrase from a page while leaving the rest of its text layer in place reliably leaves fragments behind — positioning data, spacing, partial glyph runs. Rebuilding the whole page is the only approach that can be guaranteed, and the trade is that the page is now a picture of itself.
Does it also remove hidden data like the author name?
No, that lives in the document properties rather than on the page. Redaction handles what is visible; Remove PDF Metadata handles the properties and the XMP block. Documents that need both should be run through each.
Can someone undo the redaction later?
Not from the file you download. What was under the box is not stored anywhere in it — no hidden layer, no earlier revision, no incremental-update history of the original page. Keep your own copy of the source document if you still need the original.
Which quality setting should I choose?
Standard renders redacted pages at 150 DPI and suits documents that will be read on screen. High uses 300 DPI for sharper small type and scanned detail, at a noticeably larger file. Only marked pages are affected either way, so a mostly untouched document stays close to its original size.
Can I redact a scanned document?
Yes, and it works the same way. A scan is already a picture of a page, so covering part of it and rebuilding it removes that part of the image. There is no text layer to worry about unless the scan was run through OCR first.
Does redacting break a digital signature?
It invalidates one, as any change to a signed PDF does — that is how signatures work, not a limitation here. Because this modifies the document, a signed file raises a warning before anything runs so you can stop and decide.
Is my document uploaded to be redacted?
It is not. Rendering and rewriting both happen in a worker inside this tab. Open your browser's network panel and redact a file — nothing carrying the document goes out. Switch the network off entirely and it still works.
Worth reading about Redact PDF
- Preparing a scanned document to sendA scan hides text you cannot see and metadata you did not add. What to check, and in what order, before a scanned document leaves your hands.
- A black box is not redactionA black rectangle drawn over a name leaves the name in the file. Learn how PDF redaction really works, how leaks happen, and how to check your own document.
- Are online PDF tools safe?Most PDF sites upload your document to a server. Four checks that tell you what a tool really does with your file, without taking anyone's word for it.
- PDF work for legal teamsCourt bundles, disclosure and privilege review put demands on PDFs that ordinary tools handle badly. What breaks, and the order of operations that avoids it.