PDF Redaction

Permanently removes sensitive information (personal data, financial details, confidential phrases) from PDFs. The removed content cannot be recovered.

What it does

Use this for GDPR/KVKK compliance, stripping names out of contracts, or cleaning customer data out of reports before publishing. The key thing: this tool does not just paint a black box over the content, it actually deletes it from the file. You cannot recover it with copy-paste or OCR.

How to use

  1. Drag PDFs into the list.
  2. Type each term to remove on its own line in Terms to Remove (e.g. a customer name, an ID number).
  3. If you want pattern matching, turn on Use Regex.
  4. Set the Colour and optional Overlay Text (e.g. [REDACTED]).
  5. Click Run.

You get one redacted PDF per input.

Match modes

  • Plain text (default): Looks for your terms literally.
  • Case Sensitive: Off matches both secret and SECRET. On matches only the exact case.
  • Use Regex: Treats each line as a pattern. Use this to catch all ID numbers, phone numbers or IBANs at once.

Colour and overlay

  • Black: Classic censor-bar look, most common.
  • White: Looks invisible on white backgrounds.
  • Light Grey: Softer look, shows redaction happened without being harsh.

Leave Overlay Text blank for just the coloured box. Type [REDACTED] or XXXX to print that text on top.

Common regex patterns

Data typePattern
Email[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,}
Credit card\b[0-9]{4}[\s\-]?[0-9]{4}[\s\-]?[0-9]{4}[\s\-]?[0-9]{4}\b
Phone (TR)\+?90[\s\-]?\(?5[0-9]{2}\)?[\s\-]?[0-9]{3}[\s\-]?[0-9]{4}
National ID (TR)\b[1-9][0-9]{10}\b
IBAN (TR)TR[0-9]{2}[\s]?[0-9]{4}[\s]?[0-9]{4}[\s]?[0-9]{4}[\s]?[0-9]{4}[\s]?[0-9]{4}[\s]?[0-9]{2}

Examples

Strip a customer name from a contract: Add the PDF, type John Smith into terms, run. Every instance is removed.

Bulk personal-data cleanup: Add 30 PDFs, turn on regex mode, type the ID / phone / email patterns each on their own line, run. All matches are caught and removed.

Public-ready blackouts: Add the PDF, type the secret terms, set overlay text to [REDACTED]. The output shows a black box with [REDACTED] over each removed area.

Watch out

  • Removed content cannot be recovered. Always back up the original first.
  • Colour is purely visual. Even white still physically deletes the content underneath.
  • Maximum 1000 terms, each up to 500 characters.
  • Dangerous (slow) regex patterns are blocked automatically.
  • Encrypted PDFs are not handled. Unlock them with PDF Encrypt first.
  • Scanned (image-only) PDFs cannot be redacted, run OCR first.

License

Free tier has a monthly redaction cap. Office plan removes it.