PDFConverterOnline.com

Free · runs in your browser · nothing is uploaded · works offline

Redact a PDF Online — Text Really Removed, Free, No Upload

Search for the words to hide; the pages they appear on are rebuilt without them.

Search for the words to hide; the pages they appear on are rebuilt without them.

      Private by design: processing happens on your device with open-source libraries served from this site (licences). Nothing is uploaded, and once loaded the tool keeps working offline. Need other tools? All tools are on the homepage.

      Free, no ads, no upsell. If it saved you a trip to a paid converter, you can buy the developer a coffee — it funds new tools and keeps this one free. ☕ Buy me a coffee

      Runs on your deviceTested on Pixel 7 & MacBook Air M2Open-source engines · licences

      About this tool

      Many "redaction" tools just draw a black box — the text is still there for anyone who copies it. This tool finds every occurrence of the terms you list (or whole page areas you choose), covers them, and then replaces each affected page with a flattened image, so the hidden text no longer exists in the file. Pages without redactions are left untouched. Document metadata is cleared as well.

      It all happens on your device, which is the point for the kind of documents that need redacting.

      How it works

      1. Step 1. Choose or drop the PDF(s).
      2. Step 2. Type the words or phrases to remove, one per line (and/or pick page areas).
      3. Step 3. Press Redact; check the note for how many occurrences were found.

      Questions

      Is the text really gone?

      Yes. Redacted pages are rasterised: the output contains an image of the page with the boxes already drawn, not the original text. Copy-paste and search on those pages return nothing.

      Can I draw a box on the page?

      This version works by search terms and page areas (top/bottom strips, whole pages), which is predictable and fast. Drawing boxes is planned.

      Why did it find zero occurrences?

      The PDF may be a scan with no text layer — run OCR first — or the term is split across lines or spelled differently in the file.

      Good to know

      • Redacted pages become images (not searchable).
      • Search-term and area based; no freehand boxes yet.

      Updated · Part of PDFConverterOnline.com, the independent guide to every PDF converter online.