Redacting PDF Document

Redacting allows you to permanently hide private or sensitive information in a PDF document. The redacted parts appear as colored boxes instead of the original information. Redacting is helpful if you want to publish a document but don’t want to or cannot disclose certain parts of it for some reason.

IMPORTANT: Redacting a PDF document permanently removes the redacted data from the document, so make sure to save the redacted PDF under a different file name than the original document, otherwise the redacted data will be lost.

To redact a document, use one of the options below:

  • Select Document > Redaction in the main menu.
  • Use the Redaction toolbar.

You can select objects for redacting in two ways:

  • Click the Mark for Redaction Mark for redaction buttonbutton on the toolbar (or go to the menu Document > Redaction > Mark for Redaction).
  • Click the Search and Redact Search and Redact button button on the toolbar (or go to the menu Document > Redaction > Search and Redact).

Marking Objects for Redaction

To redact objects by marking:

1. Click the Mark for Redaction Mark for redaction buttonbutton on the toolbar, or select Document > Redaction > Mark for Redaction. The mouse cursor will change to a cross.
2. Click and drag over the areas or objects that you want to redact.

Redacting PDF Document in Master PDF Editor

Marking objects for redaction

Note icon in Master PDF EditorFor better visibility of sensitive data when redacting a document, you can enable all object borders to show in the document. To do it, click Show Borders in the message which will appear after selecting the Mark for Redaction tool.

Object borders shown when redacting text in Master PDF Editor

Showing all object borders for better visibility of sensitive data

Note icon in Master PDF EditorTo always show object borders when using the Redact tool, go to Tools > Settings > Redaction and enable Show object borders by default.

3. After marking objects for redaction, click the Apply Redactions Apply Redactions button button on the toolbar, or select Document > Redaction > Apply Redactions to redact the selected blocks.

Apply Redactions in Master PDF Editor

Applying redactions in the document

Redacting PDF by Certain Keywords

When you need to redact the same text in multiple places across the document, use the Search and Redact tool.

To redact a PDF by keywords:
1. Click the Search and Redact  button on the toolbar or select Document > Redaction > Search and Redact. The Search tab will open on the left side of the window.
2. Type the keywords you want to find and select the results you wish to redact. You can review each result in the document by clicking it in the list.

Redacting PDF by Certain Keywords in Master PDF Editor

Searching for keywords to redact

3. Click the Mark Checked Results for Redaction button. This will mark all results for redaction in the document.

Mark Checked Results for Redaction in Master PDF Editor

Marking checked keywords for redaction

4. Now click the Apply Redactions Apply Redactions button button on the toolbar, or select Document > Redaction > Apply Redactions to redact the selected blocks.

Redacted objects in Master PDF Editor

Applying redactions for keywords in the document

Redaction Settings

To change how redacted areas look, go to Document > Redaction > Redaction Properties, or Tools > Settings > Redaction.

Configuring Redaction Properties in Master PDF Editor

Here you can configure settings for redacting sensitive data in a document

The following properties are available:

  • Redacted Area Fill Color. Specifies the default color to fill the redacted area blocks.
  • Show object borders by default. Shows borders of all objects by default to redact them more accurately.
  • Show hint in message bar to toggle object borders. If enabled, shows a message suggesting to display object borders.
  • Use Overlay Text. This option puts a specified text over each redacted block. You can specify Font, Size, Color and alignment of the text.
  • Auto-size text. Automatically adjust the size of the overlay text to the size of the redacted area.
  • Repeat Overlay Text. This option will fill the entire redacted area with the specified text repeated multiple times.

Also you can adjust settings of each individual redaction area:

1. Click the Edit Document Edit Document button button on the toolbar, or go to Tools > Edit Document, or press Alt+1.
2. Click the redacted area you want to adjust. The Object Inspector will open:

adjust settings of each redaction area in Master PDF Editor

Adjusting settings for the redaction area

Here you can configure how the redaction area looks:

  • Geometry allows specifying exact position and size of the selected redaction area.
  • Style allows adjusting fill color and opacity, and stroke color, opacity and line width.
  • Matrix specifies coefficients for matrix transformation.
  • Clipping path allows setting a closed vector path to constrain shape of a selected set of objects.
  • Layer allows configuring the visibility of the selected redaction area.

More like this: