Redacting vs. sanitizing a PDF: What’s the difference?

Learn how to redact and sanitize a PDF to secure your data.

It’s vital to safeguard your information when sharing documents on the internet. With a PDF, you can easily remove sensitive information in two ways: redact and sanitize. Here’s what you need to know about the difference between the processes.

What does it mean to sanitize a PDF?

Modern documents have more than just text. Whenever you send a PDF, there are still hidden pieces of data and metadata that tag along with the document. When you sanitize a PDF, it removes the hidden data and metadata, so the file is safe to pass on. Even the most computer-savvy person won’t be able to find the slightest bit of sensitive information.

Redact information from a PDF.

When you redact information from a PDF, you permanently remove text from the document. While it might just look like a simple strikethrough, redacting a PDF does much more.

Not only can the viewer no longer see the information, but they also can’t edit the document to get it back. The information under the redaction block is permanently gone from the page, no matter how hard someone might try to retrieve it.

The safest way to send information.

Online security is of the utmost importance these days. If you want your data to stay safe when sending sensitive files, it’s always best to redact and sanitize PDF documents before sending them.

Redacting removes sensitive text information that you might not want others to read while sanitizing deletes hidden data and metadata. Together, they protect your information from just about any online threat, so you can hit send with more peace of mind.