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. Redaction is available only with Power PDF Advanced.
Use the
Mark Redaction tool on the
Security tab to first mark content for redaction, so
the planned deletions can be reviewed.
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.
To mark and permanently redact content:
-
Select
.
The Redaction Tool 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 desired 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 Redaction Mark Across dialog box appears, where you can limit the marking to odd or even pages or specify a page range. Click OK to close the dialog box and assign the mark-repeating settings to the mark.
- After review, right-click in a marked area and select Apply from the shortcut menu to apply redaction permanently to that area. If you want to make all marked redactions in the current PDF permanent, select Apply All.
- Confirm redaction by clicking Apply in the dialog box that warns redaction cannot be undone.
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Conversely, if you mark and/or apply redaction to a document, but then close it without saving, all the redaction work is lost.
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Redaction can be done by searching and combined with document flattening or removing document elements. See About Redaction.