How to redact a PDF

Redacting a PDF at a glance

Redaction means	Removing words from the file, so no one can read or copy them
Doesn’t work	A black highlight or box drawn over text, or text turned white
Works here	Blackout, $1.99 per PDF, charged only when you download
Federal court filings	Unless the court orders otherwise, only the last four digits of a Social Security, taxpayer ID or financial account number, a birth year and a minor’s initials

Why doesn’t a black box redact a PDF?

Drawing a black box over text in a PDF hides the words on screen but can leave them in the file. The Court of Federal Claims says a highlighter that puts a black box over the data “merely hides the data”. The Northern District of Alabama says turning text white makes the words seem to disappear, but they stay in the file.

The NSA says in its redaction guidance that sensitive information must be actually removed from the document, not just hidden or made illegible. The NSA also lists metadata and document properties as one of three common mistakes analysts make with Word and PDF files.

How to redact a PDF here

1. Open the PDF with the button above. The PDF is never uploaded.
2. Place the $1.99 hold. Nothing is charged until you download, and the hold is released if you don’t download within 24 hours.
3. Choose Blackout and drag a box over each word, number or picture you want removed.
4. Cover the same detail on every page where it appears. Pages without a black box keep their text.
5. Press Download. We charge the $1.99, and your browser saves the redacted PDF.
6. Open the downloaded PDF in your usual PDF viewer and drag across a blacked-out page.

Keep your original PDF if you might need the covered words later. You can also open the black out text in a PDF tool directly.

What changes on a blacked-out page?

When you download, each page with a black box is saved as a picture at 200 dpi, with the box burned in. The covered text is removed from the file, and no text on that page can be selected. Form boxes on that page become part of the picture, so fill them in before you download.

Whiteout is a different tool: it places a white box that hides words on the page but doesn’t delete the text underneath. Use Blackout, not Whiteout, to redact.

What must you redact in a federal court filing?

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2, unless the court orders otherwise, filers may show only the last four digits of Social Security, taxpayer identification and financial account numbers. They may include the year of a person’s birth, and only the initials of a minor.

Under Rule 49.1, filers in criminal cases may show only the city and state of a home address. The rules committees wrote Bankruptcy Rule 9037 to parallel Rules 5.2 and 49.1 as closely as possible. Under the committee note to Rule 5.2, the responsibility to redact rests with the person making the filing, not the court clerk.

If you are filling in a tax form rather than filing with a court, see how to fill out a W-9 online.