Real redaction has one non-negotiable requirement: the content underneath the black box has to actually be gone from the file, not just visually covered by something opaque on top of it. A PDF page is a set of text and vector objects with a position — drawing a black rectangle over a region doesn't delete the text object underneath it, it just adds a new shape on top, which means the "hidden" text can still be selected, copied, or exposed by anyone who opens the file in an editor. This tool avoids that problem by flattening any page you redact into a rasterized image before saving: once a page becomes a picture of itself with the mask baked into the pixels, there's no separate text layer left to recover, because the page is no longer made of text and vector objects at all — it's one flat image.
What happens on export, specifically
Pages you didn't draw any redaction on are copied through untouched, keeping their original text and vector data — full quality, searchable, unmodified. Pages that do have a redaction box are re-rendered at high resolution, the black boxes are painted directly into that rendered image, and the result replaces the original page entirely. That page becomes a flat image in the output PDF — which means it's no longer searchable or selectable, but it also means the covered content is genuinely gone, not just obscured.
The trade-off, honestly
Flattening a page to an image is the only way to make redaction actually permanent with vector-based PDF tooling — there's no way to have both "covered content is unrecoverable" and "the rest of that specific page stays as live, selectable text," since the mask has to become part of the pixels. If you need the non-redacted text on a redacted page to stay selectable, that's a real limitation worth knowing before you rely on this for a document where that matters — but it's the correct trade-off for content that has to actually disappear.
How to verify a redacted export yourself
After exporting, try to select text in the area you covered. On a genuinely redacted page, nothing will be selectable there at all — because the whole page is now an image, not text. That's a quick way to confirm the export did what it was supposed to before you share it.
Common use cases
- Redacting PII from court filings, contracts, or discovery documents before sharing
- Removing patient or customer data before sharing medical or business records
- Masking account numbers and balances in bank statements
- Preparing documents for public release with sensitive sections permanently removed
FAQ
Is the redaction actually permanent now?
Yes — any page you draw a redaction box on is flattened to a rasterized image on export, so the covered text or vector content is genuinely removed from the file, not just hidden underneath a shape.
Will the redacted page still be searchable text?
No — flattening is what makes the redaction permanent, and the trade-off is that the entire redacted page becomes an image rather than selectable text. Pages you don't redact are untouched and stay fully searchable.
Can I redact scanned PDFs?
Yes — a scanned PDF is already image-based, so the black mask covers the pixel content directly with the same result.
Is my document uploaded to a server?
No. All redaction, rendering, and export processing happens in your browser. Your file stays entirely on your device.
Privacy
Redaction runs 100% client-side. No file data or redacted content is transmitted to external servers.