How to redact and review a PDF before sharing

Apply the supported text redactions

1. Safe redaction requires more than drawing a black shape. The sensitive content must be removed or permanently covered in the generated result and then checked carefully.
2. Scanned pages may need OCR, but recognition errors can still miss sensitive details.
3. Review the final pages visually and search for the original sensitive terms before sharing.

Prepare the document

Keep an untouched original. Identify names, account numbers, addresses, signatures, and other sensitive content that must not appear in the shared copy.

1. Save the original separately.
2. List every sensitive value to check.
3. Confirm whether the PDF text is selectable.

Run exact-text redaction

Redact PDF finds exact text runs reported by the PDF reader and rebuilds pages with matching content covered. Spelling, spacing, text segmentation, and image-only scans can affect matching.

1. Enter one exact sensitive text value.
2. Create the redacted copy.
3. Repeat or adjust the search when expected matches are absent.

Verify the shared copy

Open the result in PDF Reader, search for the original terms, and compare it visually with the source. Compare PDF can help find unintended appearance changes but is not a legal verification.

1. Inspect every redacted page.
2. Search and attempt to select the sensitive text.
3. Share only the reviewed redacted copy.