Redact a PDF with Adobe Acrobat.

What does redact mean?

Redacting a document, like a PDF or Word document, means removing specific words or information from that document, before it’s made public or shared.

The purpose of this is usually to ensure that private and confidential elements remain private and confidential. With modern-day digital formats, the use of redaction tools and software has become even more important.

But the definition of redaction has also expanded, as simply ‘blacking out’ information isn’t always enough to protect your data.

Common examples of redacted text might include:

• Names
• Contact details
• Confidential business information
• Financial data
• Customer or client details
• Protected health information (PHI).

Whether you’re running a business or simply managing your personal documents, you can give yourself peace of mind if you take a few extra steps to protect sensitive content.

How does Adobe Acrobat’s PDF redaction tool work?

Deleting text from a PDF is a modern form of redaction and using a PDF redaction tool can be an effective way to do this.

With Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can easily redact PDF documents to remove account numbers, home addresses, and other personal details in digital form.

Redacting a PDF with Adobe’s redaction software does more than simply black out sensitive information too. That’s because PDFs contain ‘metadata’, which is an extra layer of data beyond simple text and images.

Metadata can include the:

• Name of the document author

• Document description

• Keywords

• Dates and times of creation or modification.

PDFs can also contain formatting elements such as JavaScript that change how the document looks and is presented. You might want to keep every bit of this information private.

Why would I need to redact a PDF?

Redacting sensitive information helps keep communication safe between organisations, companies, customers, and the general public. As PDFs are regularly used in business and official capacities, PDF redaction tools have become increasingly vital in many cases.

Redaction is often used for governmental or legal documents. Court papers that are shared with other parties often have sensitive information redacted for privacy reasons. This includes data that, if not removed, could:

• Risk identity theft by showing information relevant to ongoing investigations.

• Expose classified information.

• Defy court-mandated redactions of specific personally identifiable information (PII).

Examples of redacted documents.

Redaction software can be used in a range of settings to redact information and help secure documents – as well as formatting. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Redacting legal documents.

Redacting documents is a common practice in legal settings. Identifying images and data might be redacted, as mistakenly sharing sensitive client or case information could lead to severe penalties and consequences.

Redacting medical documents.

Most redactions on medical documentation will focus on sensitive and private information. This often relates to patients, but sometimes employees or hospital practices too. Data redaction can prevent confidential records, such as a patient’s medical history, being divulged.

Redacting government documents.

Government documents often use redactions to protect a person or organisation’s interests or well-being. This may also be done to comply with major legislation, such as the Official Secrets Act. In the UK, a common example of a redaction could be to provide anonymity to comply with restriction orders before publication.

Redacting sensitive business documents.

Professional communications between businesses or clients, such as financial information, proprietary details, or trade secrets, can all benefit from effective redaction tools. Failure to do so could lead to legal ramifications or, more commonly, reputational damage for companies. It could also harm relationships with key business partners.

Other scenarios.

• Media professionals may want to protect anonymous sources, or remove identifying information before publishing a report, for example. Investigative journalists, in particular, know how important this can be. Because of the range of topics journalism explores, redacting information on a case-by-case basis is often important.
• In a more general setting, you may want to redact your own personal information when sharing documents with external parties.

Using a redaction tool is important, whatever the reason, as more basic approaches to redaction – like ’blacking out’ text in physical documents or changing the colour of text to white in a digital document – can be unreliable and unsecure. Meanwhile, redacting information in a PDF using credible software typically provides a secure method and helps ensure the privacy you need.

How to redact a PDF in seven simple steps.

By using Adobe Acrobat’s Redact tool, you can redact text, images or sensitive content in your PDF in moments, across the immediately visible data level, and the metadata level too.

Redacted text and graphics aren’t just concealed – they’re completely secure.

Before you begin, you may well want to make a copy of your PDF, so you have the original to refer to – and access to the data you’re about to remove – if required. Of course, it goes without saying that both files will need to be properly secured.

To begin, simply enter Edit Mode on Acrobat, and proceed with the steps below to easily redact and delete text from your PDF.

1. Go to the Acrobat Redact tool.

Click on Tools › Redact. Alternatively, you can click  Redact  from the left-hand menu under All Tools.

2. Select the areas you want to redact.

Draw squares or rectangles across or over the graphics and text you want to redact from your PDF. If you make any mistakes, you can use the Command+Z or Control+Z shortcuts to go back a step, depending on your operating system.

3. Edit your redaction box (optional).

If you want to alter the appearance of your redaction box, you can. First, click or tap the drop-down menu labelled Redact Text & Images.

Next, press Redaction Tool Properties. Choose your ideal colours, opacity, or any custom text you want to use. Once done, click OK to confirm your selection.

4. Apply your redactions.

Once you’re happy with your redaction, click Apply. You’ll then see a pop-up to confirm the redacted info will be removed permanently, and you won’t be able to get this back.

5. Remove any metadata.

Under the same pop-up, you’ll have the option to remove any metadata too. Leave the button toggled to sanitise and remove hidden data and metadata in your PDF. This should thoroughly secure your document and help ensure no private information is unwittingly passed along.

6. Click OK .

If you’re happy with your redactions click OK to apply the changes.. This will then permanently delete the text and images selected from your PDF.

7. Save the redacted PDF as a new file.

Once complete, it’s worth saving your redacted document under a different file name. This means you can retain the original PDF should you need any of the redacted text or data.

You’ll find several search options here, including:

• Single word or phrase. To use this, simply type the word or phrase you want to redact from your PDF into the search box.

• Multiple words or phrases. This allows you to search for several items at the same time. Type each word or phrase one after the other in the search and click Add after each. You can even import text files that contain a list of the search terms (if it has been prepared).

• Patterns. You can search by patterns, to redact sequences such as phone numbers, email addresses, card numbers, dates and more. To do so, simply select a pattern from the available list that fits the bill.

To change the language of patterns:

• On PC. Go to Edit > Preferences, then select your preferred language.

• On Mac. Select Acrobat > Preferences, then choose your new language.

5. Once you’re happy with your search terms, click Search & Remove Text.