Redact PDF

It lets you draw black boxes over sensitive parts of a PDF, then removes the content under those boxes when you download. You upload one file, mark the areas that must stay private, and save a cleaned copy. The black rectangle is stamped in place of the deleted text or image, so nothing recoverable remains beneath it.

Yes. At download time the page is rebuilt without the text and image data sitting under each box, and a solid black rectangle is stamped in that spot. The content is deleted, not merely covered. Because of this, review each page carefully before you download, since you cannot restore hidden data from the saved file.

No, because the text is removed from the file during the download step, not just hidden behind a shape. This is the key difference from a black highlight or a rectangle drawn in a word processor, where the characters usually stay selectable underneath. Once you save, there is no text left under the box to copy or extract.

Yes, you can redact a PDF free of charge. There is no signup wall before you draw boxes or download the result. Because all processing runs in your browser, there are no server costs tied to uploading and returning files, which keeps the tool open to use whenever you need to hide sensitive information in a PDF.

No. The editor renders and rebuilds the PDF entirely inside your browser, so the document never leaves your device. Reading the file, drawing boxes, stripping the content beneath them, and saving the result all happen locally. That client-side approach is what keeps a redaction workflow private, which matters when the whole point is hiding sensitive material.

Use the Previous and Next buttons in the editor to move between pages. You can draw boxes on any page, and each one is tracked separately. When you download, every marked area across the document is processed at once. This lets you work through a long file page by page and remove sensitive details wherever they appear.

Press Undo to remove the last box you drew, or Clear All to remove every box and start over. Nothing is applied to the underlying content until you click Download, so boxes remain editable up to that point. This gives you room to adjust placement freely before committing to the final redacted file.

Redaction deletes specific content from inside the pages and stamps a black box over the gap, so the removed details are gone even for someone who opens the file. Protect PDF instead adds a password so the whole document stays locked until the reader enters it, while all content remains intact once unlocked. Use redaction to remove data, protection to restrict access.

They serve different goals. Redaction removes content and covers it with a black rectangle so it stays hidden. Edit PDF changes or replaces existing text and objects, which keeps a readable document with new wording. If you want a passage gone and marked as removed, redact it. If you want to rewrite or correct it, edit it instead.

Yes. A scanned page is stored as an image, and the redaction box removes the image data under it before stamping the black rectangle. Because there is no separate text layer to worry about on a pure scan, the covered area is fully cleared. If you later need searchable text, run the file through OCR PDF first.

The tool takes a single .pdf file and returns a PDF with the black boxes applied. If your content is in another format, convert it to PDF first, then redact. The output stays a standard PDF that opens in any reader, with the marked areas removed and covered by the black rectangles you drew.

Keep your own private copy of the source if you may need the hidden details later, because the redacted download has that content removed for good. The tool never overwrites your upload; it creates a new file at download. Store the original somewhere safe and share only the redacted version, so the black box always stays between readers and the private data.