Black out names, numbers and any text in a PDF. The text under each box is removed from the new file, not just covered. Free, no signup, and your PDF stays in your browser.
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Drawing a black rectangle over text in a PDF editor changes how the page looks, but the words are usually still stored in the file. Anyone can select them, copy them or search for them, and some viewers will show them. A real redaction removes the content underneath.
This tool removes it by rebuilding every page as an image with the boxes burned in. The original text layer, hidden layers and document properties such as author and title are not carried into the new file. Read the full guide: Is a black box enough to redact a PDF?
Common examples are Social Security numbers, bank and card numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, names of minors, account numbers and signatures. The quick patterns find the formats most often seen in US documents, and you can add anything else by typing it in or drawing a box. This is not legal advice, and courts and agencies have their own redaction rules, so check the ones that apply to you.
Yes. Applying the redactions redraws every page as an image with the boxes burned in and builds a new PDF from those images. The original text layer is not copied into the new file, so there is nothing to select or copy under the boxes. After saving, the tool also checks the new PDF and tells you how much selectable text it finds.
No. The PDF is opened and processed in your browser. It is not sent to our servers. The page loads the PDF.js and jsPDF code libraries from a CDN, but your file itself stays on your device.
Many tools only draw a black rectangle on top of the page. The text underneath is still in the file, so anyone can select it, copy it or search for it. Real redaction removes the underlying content. This tool does that by turning each page into an image before saving.
No. Because every page becomes an image, the whole new PDF has no selectable or searchable text, including the parts you did not redact. This is the trade-off that makes the redaction permanent. Keep your original file if you need a searchable copy.
Yes, by drawing boxes by hand. Scanned PDFs have no text layer, so Find and the quick patterns cannot see the words. Draw a box over everything you want to hide and apply the redactions.
For PDFs with selectable text, Find reads the text on each page and puts a box over every match for a word or pattern (email, US phone number, Social Security number, card number, date, dollar amount). It can miss text that is split oddly, rotated, or inside images, and patterns can match things you do not want to hide. Always look through every page before you save.
Open the new PDF, press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F) and search for a word you redacted, and try to select the area under a box. You should find nothing. The tool also reports how many text items it found in the new file.
Yes. It is free, needs no signup and adds no watermark. Very large PDFs take longer because the work happens in your browser.
Each page is saved as an image, which is usually larger than text and vector content. Choose Smaller file in the quality list to reduce the size. For a text-heavy file the new PDF can be several times bigger.
This tool is not legal advice. Courts and agencies set their own redaction rules, so check the rules that apply to you and always review the finished file page by page before you share it.