Black out a PDF so the text underneath is actually gone.
Drag over anything that should not be readable. The text underneath is removed, not covered — and you can check what a document is still giving away before you send it. Nothing is uploaded.
Reading the document…
Everything below can be selected and copied out of the file as it stands, including anything sitting under a black rectangle somebody drew. If a name you thought was hidden is here, it is not hidden.
Your document is opened and rewritten in this browser tab. It is never uploaded.
Removes text from a PDF rather than covering it up. Drag across a name, an address, an account number — anything that should not be readable — and it is gone from the file, not hidden behind a shape somebody can move.
This matters because the obvious method does not work. Draw a black rectangle in almost any PDF editor and the text is still underneath it: select the area, press copy, and there it is. It is not a subtle bug — it has put names, addresses and account numbers into the public record in court filings and official reports, and it keeps happening because the file looks correct on screen.
So the tool does two jobs. Drop in a document and it shows you what is still readable in it, including anything under an existing black box — worth knowing before you send it, whoever redacted it. Then it redacts properly. All of it happens in this browser tab, which for the documents that need redacting is rather the point.
Somebody has redacted a contract or a report and you are about to forward it. Thirty seconds tells you whether the black boxes are real.
Bank statements for an application, a payslip as proof of income, a medical letter. You need the document; nobody needs your account number.
Third-party names and addresses have to come out, and the difference between covered and removed is the difference between compliance and a breach.
Journalists and researchers publishing a leaked or obtained file, where the person named in it is the one with something to lose.
It opens here, in the page — nothing is uploaded, which for the kind of document that needs redacting is the whole point.
Before you touch anything, the panel at the top lists the text that can be copied out of the file as it stands. If something you thought was hidden is in there, it is not hidden.
Any number of boxes, on any number of pages. Click a box to remove it if you change your mind.
The pages you marked are rebuilt without the content underneath. Run the result back through this tool if you want to see for yourself that it is gone.
Because a PDF keeps its text and its graphics as separate instructions. A rectangle is one more instruction drawn on top; the text instruction is untouched and still says what it said. Anything that reads the file rather than looking at it — a copy and paste, a search, any PDF library — reads straight past the rectangle.
It rebuilds each page you marked as a flat image with the black areas already burned into the pixels, and replaces the original page with it. There is no layer left to peel off, because there are no layers — the text is not hidden, it does not exist in the file any more.
On the pages you redact, yes — they become images, so text on them is no longer selectable or searchable. That is the trade, and it is deliberate: it is the only approach whose failure mode is visible. Pages you do not redact are left exactly as they were, with their text intact.
Put the redacted file back into this tool. The panel at the top will show you everything still readable in it, and the text you removed will not be there. That is a better answer than us telling you it worked.
No. It is opened, rendered and rewritten in this browser tab and never sent anywhere. Turn your wifi off after the page loads and it still works — which is worth doing once, given what people redact.
The rewritten file drops the original document's producer information, but a PDF can carry author names and other properties that are separate from the page content. If that matters for your document, check it separately — redacting the visible page does not touch the file's properties.
Yes, and the boxes work the same way. There is no text to remove in a scan — it is a picture — so the audit panel will tell you there is nothing selectable. The black areas are still burned into the image, which is what matters.