What is the difference between redaction and masking?

Masking draws a black box on top of the page; the original text is still in the file and can be copied or extracted. True redaction in pdfKOM renders each affected page to an image, paints the boxes into the image, and rebuilds the page from that image alone. The original text, fonts and vector content of those pages are left out of the output.

What are the limitations of true redaction?

Redacted pages become images, so their text can no longer be selected or searched, and the file may get bigger. Pages you did not redact are copied as they are unless you choose to rasterise every page. Metadata, bookmarks and attachments from the original are not copied. Review the output before you share it.

Redact PDF

Draw boxes over sensitive information. Choose true redaction, which rebuilds affected pages as images so the hidden text is gone from the file, or masking, which only covers it visually.

Drop a PDF file here

or click to choose a file from your device

How to redact a PDF

Open the PDF that contains sensitive information.
Draw boxes over everything that should be removed, page by page.
Choose true redaction to remove the covered content, or masking for a quick visual cover.
Click Redact PDF (or Apply masks), check the result, and download it.

Frequently asked questions

Protect PDFAdd a password and encrypt your PDF with AES-256.
Sign PDFDraw, type or upload a signature and place it on your PDF.
Compress PDFReduce PDF file size with lossless or image compression.

How to redact a PDF

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between redaction and masking?

What are the limitations of true redaction?

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