PDF Redaction
Black out text and images so they are truly gone — pages re-rendered, not covered.
About this tool
Every page is shown; drag boxes over anything to remove; save. The result is a PDF whose pages are images with the boxes burned in, so the covered content no longer exists in the file. Done in your browser.
Why a black rectangle is not redaction
The redaction failures that make headlines share one cause: someone drew a black box over text in a PDF editor, and the text was still there underneath — selectable, searchable, one copy-paste away. A PDF is layers; a shape on top hides nothing from software. Real redaction removes the content, and the simplest way to guarantee that is the one this tool uses: after you draw the boxes, each page is rasterised to an image with the boxes painted in, and a new PDF is built from those images. The text under the boxes is not in the new file because no text is in the new file at all. That is also the honest cost — the output is a scanned-looking PDF with no selectable text, a larger size, and no metadata (which is a feature: document metadata leaks authors and edit history). Run the searchable PDF tool on the result if the remaining text needs to be searchable again. Everything happens on your device, which for a document you're redacting is not optional. For metadata alone, the metadata editor; to drop whole pages, delete pages.
Frequently asked questions
Is the text really gone, or just covered?
Really gone. Pages are re-rendered as images with the boxes painted in, and the new PDF contains no text layer at all. Nothing under a box can be selected, searched or recovered from the file.
Why is the result not searchable?
Because it's built from page images, which is what guarantees removal. Use the searchable PDF tool afterwards to add an OCR text layer for the remaining content.
Can I undo a box?
Yes — 'Undo last box' removes the most recent one. Nothing is final until you save.
Is the document uploaded?
No — rendering, boxing and saving all happen in your browser.