Find and Redact
Search a PDF for words, numbers or patterns and black out the matches you select. Every page with a redaction is saved as an image.
About This Tool
Find and Redact searches every page of a PDF for the words, numbers or patterns you type and covers the matches you select with a filled box. Each page that carries a redaction is then saved as an image of itself, so the covered text is no longer in the file, and the rest of that page can no longer be selected either.
Several terms can be searched at once, separated by commas, with options for matching case, whole words and regular expressions. A line is searched whole and in the order it is read, so a name set partly in bold is found, and so is Arabic in a file saved from a browser, which holds each line letter by letter from its left end. Arabic is matched by its letters: vowel marks and stretched letters make no difference, in the file or in what you type. A number is found whether its digits are Western (0123) or Arabic (٠١٢٣), in the file or in what you type. A name broken over two lines is missed, and so is text inside pictures, scans, comments and form fields; pages that have no text at all are named after a search. Each box is grown to the ends of the words it touches, so a match that is part of a word blacks out the whole word. The place of a box is worked out from the text, so check every match in the preview, and the downloaded file, before you rely on it.
All processing happens in your browser, ensuring your documents remain private and secure.
How to Use
Upload Your PDF
Drag and drop your PDF file or click to select.
Search for Text
Type what to look for, separating several terms with commas, and click "Search". After you redact you can search again: each round works on the result of the one before.
Review and Select
Look at each match in the preview and make sure its box covers the whole of the text. Untick the matches you want to keep.
Apply Redaction
Choose the colour, a border and a replacement text if you want them, click "Redact 3 Selected" (the number is your own count), then download the result.
Use Cases
Privacy Compliance
Black out personal details before a document is released. Check the result yourself: the tool cannot tell you whether it meets GDPR, HIPAA or any other rule.
Legal Documents
Remove confidential data from legal documents before sharing.
Financial Records
Redact account numbers, SSNs, or financial data from statements.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is redaction permanent?
Yes. Every page with a redaction is replaced by an image of itself with the boxes painted in, so the text under them no longer exists in the file. The rest of that page can no longer be selected or searched either; other pages are untouched. Keep a copy of the original.
Can I redact images or scanned text?
No. It finds only text that the PDF stores as text, so words inside a picture or a scan are not found, and a box cannot be drawn by hand here. After a search the page names the pages that have no text at all. Give a scanned document a text layer with OCR PDF first, then search it here and check the result closely.
Can I customize the redaction appearance?
Yes, you can set the redaction color, add borders, and optionally include replacement text like "[REDACTED]".
How does regex search work?
Tick "Use Regular Expression" and type a pattern, for example \d{4}-\d{4}-\d{4}-\d{4} for a card number written with hyphens. With the box ticked, everything you type is one pattern, so a comma belongs to it and a count such as {2,4} works.