Redact PDF (Visual Blackout)
Draw black boxes over sensitive regions for visual sharing and printing. All processing happens in your browser.
Warning: visual redaction only, NOT true redaction.
This tool draws black rectangles over the page. The underlying text is not removed from the file: it can still be selected, copied, searched, or recovered by deleting the boxes. Use this only for visual sharing and printing. Never use it for court filings, medical records, contracts, or any legally sensitive redaction. True redaction requires removing the text from the PDF data itself.
Step 3: Drag on the preview to draw black boxes over sensitive text.
How to Black Out Text in a PDF
Upload your PDF, select a page, and drag rectangles over every region you want hidden. A dark overlay shows each box as you draw so you can verify coverage. Repeat on every page that contains sensitive data, then click Apply Redaction to bake solid black rectangles into a new downloadable file. Remember the warning above: this covers text visually only, it does not delete it from the file.
Choose your PDF file and wait for the first page preview to render.
Drag across the preview to draw a box over each name, number, or address you want hidden. Make boxes slightly larger than the text.
Move through the page selector and cover sensitive regions on every page. Use Undo or Clear Page Boxes to fix mistakes.
Click Apply Redaction and download the result. Double check the output pages before sharing.
Visual Blackout vs True Redaction
These are fundamentally different operations and confusing them causes real harm. Visual blackout paints an opaque rectangle on top of the page, like a marker on paper. The PDF still contains the original text objects in exactly the same positions, which means selecting the area with a mouse, copying it, searching the document, or opening the file in an editor reveals everything underneath. True redaction deletes those text objects from the PDF content and cleans metadata, leaving nothing to recover. News stories about leaked "redacted" documents almost always involve someone who used black boxes instead of real redaction. This tool is honest about being the first kind: perfect for presentations, tutorials, and casual sharing, and completely unsuitable for anything where secrecy actually matters.
Covering Text Thoroughly
The most common mistake is missing an occurrence. Sensitive data repeats: a name appears in the header, the body, and a signature block; an account number shows in a table and again in a footer. Before you draw a single box, search the PDF in your reader for each sensitive term and note every page where it appears. Draw boxes generously, overlapping the text edges by a few points, because a sliver of visible character can be enough to guess a number. Cover metadata too if it matters: author names and titles live in the document properties, which this tool does not touch. Use the PDF Metadata Viewer and Editor tool on this site to clean those fields separately.
Privacy While You Work
All rendering and rectangle drawing happens locally in your browser with pdf.js and pdf-lib. Your document never uploads to any server, nothing is logged, and no account is required, so the tool is safe to use even with highly sensitive source material. That privacy is about the process, not the product: the downloaded file still contains the original text under the black boxes, so handle the output with the same care you would give the unredacted original when deciding who may receive it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this tool truly remove the text from my PDF?
No, and this is the most important thing to understand. This tool draws solid black rectangles over the page, exactly like holding a marker over printed paper. The original text, names, and numbers remain in the PDF data underneath. Anyone can select and copy the hidden text, extract it with a text tool, or delete the black boxes in a PDF editor. It is only suitable for visual sharing and printing, never for legally sensitive redaction.
When is visual blackout redaction acceptable?
Visual blackout is fine when the risk is casual viewing rather than forensic recovery: hiding a price while screensharing a quote, masking an address in a screenshot for a tutorial, or covering account digits on a printout handed to one trusted person. In these cases nobody is trying to recover the text. The moment the document could be scrutinized, forwarded widely, or used in a legal or compliance context, visual blackout is not enough.
What should I use for real, legally safe redaction?
True redaction removes the text from the PDF content stream and replaces it with nothing, so no copy, search, or extraction can recover it. That requires dedicated redaction software such as Adobe Acrobat Pro's redaction tool, or a purpose built redaction service, and you should always verify the result by trying to select and copy the redacted area and by searching the document for the sensitive strings. For court filings, medical records, and contracts, use a certified workflow, not a black box overlay.
How do I mark the areas to black out?
Load your PDF, pick the page, and drag with your mouse across the preview to draw a rectangle over each sensitive region. Each rectangle appears as a dark overlay so you can see exactly what is covered. If you misplace one, Undo removes the last rectangle, or Clear removes all rectangles on the current page. When every page is covered, click Apply Redaction to draw permanent black rectangles into a new downloadable PDF.
Can I redact multiple pages at once?
Yes. Draw rectangles on each page using the page selector, and the tool remembers rectangles per page. The redaction list counts every rectangle across all pages, and Apply Redaction draws them all into the output file in one pass. Take your time on long documents: missing one occurrence of a name or number is the most common redaction mistake, so search the PDF for each sensitive term first and cover every hit.
Is my document uploaded to a server?
No. The PDF is rendered for preview with pdf.js and the black rectangles are drawn with pdf-lib, entirely in your browser on your own device. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored, and no account is needed. Even so, remember the core warning: this is visual cover only, so treat the output as if the hidden text were still readable by anyone motivated to look.