Black out names, numbers and passages — then delete the text underneath, not just hide it. Nothing leaves your browser.
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To redact a PDF, open it above, drag a black box over every name, number or passage you need hidden, then download and choose “Remove permanently”. The pages you marked are rebuilt so the text under each box is deleted, the file’s metadata is cleared, and the finished PDF is re-checked before it downloads. Drawing the boxes is free and happens entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
Drop it into the box above. It opens on your device — the file is never uploaded.
The Redact tool is already selected. Drag across each name, account number or paragraph. Boxes can be moved and resized — check every page before you finish.
Pages with boxes are rebuilt so the covered text is gone, then the output is re-read. If any text is still found under a box, nothing downloads.
Black out account numbers, balances or employer details before sending proof of income or address to a landlord or lender.
Remove names, addresses and case details from contracts, disciplinary letters or evidence bundles before they go to a third party.
Strip personal data of other people from documents you are handing over, so only what you are obliged to share remains readable.
Hide ID numbers, diagnoses or policy numbers that the recipient does not need to see.
Most failed redactions look perfect. Someone draws a black rectangle over a name, the page looks redacted, and the file goes out — but the text is still sitting underneath the rectangle. Court filings and government reports have been published this way, with “redacted” passages that anyone could copy out in seconds.
You can test any redacted PDF yourself: open it, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac) to select everything, copy, and paste into a plain text editor. Or press Ctrl+F and search for a word you blacked out. If the hidden text appears, the document was covered, not redacted. Any tool that only draws a shape on top fails this test — including our own free “Cover only” option.
“Remove permanently” is built to pass it. Each page that has a box is re-rendered as an image with the boxes burned in, so the covered characters no longer exist in the file. Text that was not under a box is put back as an invisible, searchable layer so the page still works with Ctrl+F. Form fields on those pages are removed, the document’s title, author, subject, keywords and XMP metadata are cleared, and leftover objects are purged. Finally the downloaded file is re-read and checked: if any text is still found under a box, the download is stopped rather than handing you a leaky file.
Continue your PDF workflow: White Out PDF — Cover typos and details that aren’t confidential., Remove Image from PDF — Delete photos, logos and stamps from a page. or Flatten PDF — Lock form fields and annotations into the page.
You can draw redaction boxes and download free (3 downloads a day), but the free “Cover only” download is a visual cover: the original text stays in the file. That is fine for hiding a detail on a printout, and not fine for anything confidential. True removal — the “Remove permanently” option — needs a 24-hour pass ($2.99) or any paid plan.
If you need a genuinely free, permanent option, LibreOffice (free desktop software) has a Redact tool that exports the marked document as an image-based PDF. It takes longer to set up, but it does remove the underlying text. Whatever you use, run the copy-and-paste test above on the finished file before you send it.
To black out text in a PDF so it can’t be copied, the text has to be deleted from the page, not just covered. In DoceasePDF that means drawing the black boxes and choosing “Remove permanently” at download: the marked pages become images, so there is nothing left to select under the boxes.
Know the trade-off before you choose it. The pages you redacted become roughly 180-dpi images — sharp on screen and in print, but no longer vector, and the file may be larger. Pages without boxes are left exactly as they were. Draw boxes slightly larger than the text so descenders and accents are fully covered.
If you already pay for Acrobat Pro and need to redact a 500-page production, use its Redact tool. It can search for a word or a pattern — phone numbers, email addresses, a client’s name — and mark every occurrence across the whole document at once. DoceasePDF has no automatic search-and-redact: you draw each box yourself, which suits a handful of pages, not a discovery dump.
DoceasePDF is the quicker route when you have a few pages, no Acrobat licence, or a document you would rather not upload anywhere. It also does not use OCR, so on scanned pages you cover the area you can see — the re-rendering still removes the pixels under the box.
| DoceasePDF | Upload-based tools | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your file is processed | On your device, in your browser | Uploaded to their servers |
| Account required | No — open a file and start | Often required after 1–2 uses |
| Price | Free — 3 documents a day | Credits, trials or subscriptions |
| Waiting for uploads | None — files open instantly | Upload + queue + download again |
| Tools per session | Every tool on one document | One tool, then re-upload |
Editing happens in your browser with WebAssembly. Your file is never uploaded, so nobody — including us — can see it.
3 documents a day with every tool included — no sign-up, no page limits, no watermarks. Pro lifts the daily cap.
Any modern browser on Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone or Android. Nothing to download or install.
Edit, sign, organize and compress in a single session — no re-uploading between tools like on other sites.
Open the PDF in the tool above, drag black boxes over what you want hidden and download. The free “Cover only” download hides the text visually but leaves it in the file; to delete it for good, choose “Remove permanently”, which needs a 24-hour pass or paid plan.
Open it, press Ctrl+A or Cmd+A, copy, and paste into a text editor — or search for a word that should be gone. If the blacked-out text shows up, it was only covered. Files made with “Remove permanently” are checked this way automatically before they download.
With “Remove permanently”, yes: the document title, author, subject, keywords and XMP metadata are cleared and orphaned objects are purged. The free “Cover only” download does not touch metadata.
No. The file is opened, edited and rebuilt inside your browser. It never reaches our servers, which matters when the reason you are redacting is that the content is sensitive.
No — DoceasePDF has no search-and-redact; you draw each box. For long documents with many repeats, Acrobat Pro’s pattern search is the better tool if you have it.
Mostly. Text that was not under a box is restored as an invisible text layer, so Ctrl+F and copy still work for it. The redacted pages themselves become images, so their layout can no longer be edited as text.
Yes. A scanned page is one picture, so you draw the box over the area you can see. There is no OCR, but “Remove permanently” re-renders the page, so the pixels under the box are gone from the output.