Redact PDF — Black Out Text Permanently

What it does

Before sending a bank statement, an ID copy or a contract, you often need to hide an account number or a personal ID. Drawing a black shape over the PDF is not enough: the text under the shape stays in the file, and moving the shape or copying the text reveals it again.

This tool redraws every page that has a box exactly as it looks, paints the boxes black on that picture and uses the picture in place of the page. The page’s original text, images and comments are not written to the result, so what was under a box cannot be brought back. Pages without boxes are left untouched.

How to use

1. Drop one PDF on the box or press Choose PDF.
2. Go to a page with the page list or the ‹ › buttons.
3. Drag on the preview to draw a box over what to hide. With a keyboard, press Add box, move it with the arrow keys and size it with Shift+arrows.
4. Repeat on other pages; check or remove boxes in the list below.
5. Choose the redraw resolution and press Redact and save.
6. Check the blacked-out areas in the result preview, then download name-redacted.pdf.

How it works

• Method: each page with boxes is rendered by PDF.js at 150, 200 or 300 dpi, the box areas are painted black (rounded outwards to whole pixels) and the page is replaced with that single JPEG picture.
• Left out of the result: redacted pages are created from scratch in the new file as a single picture, so none of their original content, images, fonts, comments or form-field values is copied. When pages share one set of images and fonts, each kept page takes along only what its own content uses. For safety, document properties (title, author), bookmarks, attachments and form definitions are left out too, and hidden leftovers from earlier edits do not come along.
• Kept: text and comments on pages without boxes. If the same detail appears on another page, put a box there too. Links that jump to a page are re-pointed at the same page in the new file; links that use named destinations stop working. Form fields on kept pages still show their values but lose the form structure, so they may no longer be editable.
• Quality: redacted pages are pictures and may look soft when zoomed in. 200 dpi suits normal documents; choose 300 dpi for small print.
• Limits: files up to 100 MB. PDFs that ask for a password, or have editing restrictions, are not processed.

Examples

Document	What to black out
Bank statement	Account number digits, balance
ID or passport copy	ID number, date of birth
Signed contract copy	Amounts, signatures, phone numbers
Medical note	Details the recipient does not need

To add a password afterwards, use Protect PDF; to turn every page into pictures, use Rasterize PDF.