Redact content

Redaction cannot be undone once applied. To avoid mistakes, we strongly advise you to make a copy of the original PDF before you perform redaction; or save the redacted PDF as a new file with a different name and/or location.

Mark redaction icon Use the Mark Redaction tool on the Security tab to first mark content for redaction, so the planned deletions can be reviewed. Clicking the tool displays the following commands:

Mark Text and Images: Use this tool to select areas for redaction manually.
Select Pages: Use this tool to select whole pages for redaction.

Apply Redaction icon Use the Apply Redaction tool when reviewing is completed, to permanently and unrecoverably render the data unreadable by applying redaction.

Areas to be redacted are marked by red rectangles, whereas already redacted areas are indicated by colored blocks; by default they are black.

Visible contents including text, graphics and images can be redacted. The appearance of redacted items can be modified. They commonly appear as colored boxes filled in with solid color, but you can also set them to display overlaid privacy codes, custom text, or simply a blank area.

Conversely, if you mark and/or apply redaction to a document, but then close it without saving, all the redaction work is lost.
Redaction can be done by searching and combined with document flattening or removing document elements. See About Redaction.

Mark and permanently redact content

Select Security > Redaction Properties.

The Redaction Properties dialog box appears.
Set your redaction mark appearance. See Setting Redaction Properties.
Select the Mark Redaction tool shown above.
To mark the text content to remove, move your pointer over it. When the mouse pointer changes to Text Select (), select the text to be removed.
To remove an area with no text (such as a picture), move the cursor to it. When it changes to a crosshair (), draw a rectangle to cover the preferred selection area.
Hold the pointer over a marked area to preview how the redaction marking will look when applied.
To apply the same mark across the document, right-click in the marked area and select Repeat mark across pages.
The Repeat mark across pages dialog box appears, where you can limit the marking to odd or even pages or specify a page range. Click OK to confirm the settings and close the dialog box.
To apply redaction to the marked content after review, do any of the following:
- Right-click in a marked area and select Apply from the shortcut menu to apply redaction permanently to that area.
- Right-click in a marked area and select Apply All from the shortcut menu to make all marked redactions in the current PDF permanent.
- Select Security > Redaction > Apply Redaction to make all marked redactions in the opened PDF documents permanent.
When prompted to confirm redaction, click Apply.

Mark and permanently redact pages

Follow steps 1-2 above to set options for the appearance of redaction marks.
Select the Mark Redaction tool shown above, then click Select Pages.
In the Mark Page Range dialog box, select any of the following options:
1. Mark current page for redaction: Redacts only the current page of the document.
2. Mark specific page range for redaction: Edit the page range in the box provided.
Click OK to redact the selected pages.