Redact PDF
Find a word in a PDF and black out every occurrence — the words are deleted from the file itself and the page keeps its other text and links. Free, no upload.
Drop PDF files here or click to browse
🔒 Everything happens in your browser — your PDF is never uploaded. Add text, signatures, images, shapes and highlights anywhere by dragging; cover anything you want gone; reorder, rotate, crop or split pages; then download.
Black out sensitive text — and truly remove it
Drop in a PDF, then drag over anything you need to hide — names, account numbers, signatures, addresses. The box snaps to the line under it, so it takes the words you crossed and nothing above or below them; switch to drawing a box for a signature, a stamp or a photograph. When the same name is scattered over forty pages, type it into “Find and redact” and every occurrence is covered in one press. The words under each box are taken out of the page instructions themselves and the file is rebuilt without them, so there is nothing left behind the black bar to select, copy or recover. This is real redaction, not a black rectangle laid on top that a reader could delete, drag aside, or copy the text out from behind.
The rest of the page survives
Removing the words does not cost you the page. Everything you did not cover stays exactly where it was and stays selectable and searchable, the links keep working, and the table of contents keeps its anchors — which is what separates this from tools that rasterize every page they touch to be sure. A picture is the one exception: there are no words to remove from a photograph, so a box over a scan — or over a signature, a stamp or a logo on a page that is otherwise text — flattens that page to an image, and the editor tells you which pages that applies to before you save.
Frequently asked questions
Can I redact every occurrence of a name at once?
Yes. Type the word or phrase into Find and redact, and every occurrence in the whole document is covered in one press — each match becomes an ordinary box you can look over, move or delete before you save. It reads the words the page itself draws, so a scanned page has nothing to find, and a phrase broken across two pieces of a line is not matched; drag over those by hand.
Is this real redaction, or just a black box on top?
Real redaction. The glyphs under each box are removed from the page content stream and the file is rebuilt without them. Unlike drawing a black rectangle in a PDF editor — which sits on top of text anyone can select, move, or copy from behind — the words are gone from the file, so there is nothing left underneath to recover.
Will the redacted pages still have selectable text?
Yes, apart from the words you covered. Only the glyphs under your boxes are removed, so the rest of the page keeps its selectable and searchable text, its links and its bookmarks, and stays readable by a screen reader. The exception is a box with no words under it — a scanned page, or a signature or logo on a page that is otherwise text. There is nothing there to remove, so that page is flattened to an image instead, and the editor names those pages before you save.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The PDF is rendered and rebuilt entirely in your browser with pdf.js and pdf-lib. Your file never leaves your device and the tool keeps working offline, which is essential for the sensitive documents you would redact.