How to redact or remove sensitive content in PDFs

This article will tell you how to redact or remove sensitive content in PDFs with Foxit PDF Editor (Pro).

Redaction (Pro Only)

The redaction feature allows you to remove sensitive information from your document prior to making it available to others. You are able to mark the text, graphics, text and graphics, or pages for Redaction first, and then apply the redaction. Alternatively, you can use the Whiteout feature to remove the content permanently and replace it with white background with one click.

The ‘how to redact or remove sensitive content in PDFs’ has 2 important steps:

Mark for Redaction

To mark text or graphics for redaction, select Protect > Mark for Redaction > Text & Images, and the Hand command changes into a Cross  automatically. Then do any the following to mark the content:

• Drag a rectangle where you want to add redaction. This method allows you to select and mark both text and images at the same time.
• Double-click an image to mark an entire image.
• Hover the pointer over the text. When the pointer changes into , click and drag to select the text you want to redact.
• If you need to add redaction to the same position on multiple pages, please right-click the marked content and choose Place on Multiple Pages….

To mark pages for redaction, select Protect > Mark for Redaction > Pages, and choose the page range you want to add redaction to. In the Extract drop-down list you can choose even or odd pages from the page range to add redaction to.

The marked content or page will be filled with black color in a red rectangle once moving close the pointer to the selected area. You can move and resize the rectangle before you apply the redaction. (Note: You can’t move or resize the rectangle around the text selected with the pointer.)

Apply Redaction

You need to apply the redactions after marking the text, graphics, or pages you want to redact. To apply the redaction, do the following:

• Select Protect > Mark for Redaction > Apply Redactions to redact all of the marked content in the document. You can also do this by right-clicking the marked content and choosing Apply or Apply All to redact either the selected content or all of the marked content in the document.
• A dialog box pops up to give a warning message and asks if you are sure to apply the redaction or not.
• Select OK after you have marked all content that you want to redact. 

When you save the document after applying redaction, you can save the redacted file automatically as a new file with the preconfigured filename. To configure the filename, please select Adjust filename when saving applied redaction marks and input text in the Prefix and Suffix boxes in File > Preferences > Documents > Redaction.