A vendor asked to see our scope and I would like to share a contract copy but it contains the owner's financials. I wo…
Open the PDF you want to redact in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Go to Tools and select Redact.
Click Find and Remove Text.
Enter the word, phrase, or pattern you want to search for in the search box.
Choose the location to search (e.g., current document or all PDFs in a folder), then click Search.
Review the search results and check all instances you want to redact, or use Select All to mark every occurrence.
Click Mark for Redaction to mark the selected instances.
Click Apply Redactions and confirm when prompted to permanently remove the marked content.
CautionRedactions are permanent and cannot be undone after saving.
Best practiceYou can customize the appearance of redaction marks before applying them by adjusting settings in the Redact tool.
Best practiceAlways double-check your search term and results to ensure all sensitive information is covered, especially with patterns like SSNs.
Save the redacted PDF with a new file name.
You can use the Find Text and Redact feature to quickly locate and mark all instances of sensitive words or patterns for redaction throughout your document.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
Sanitizing a PDF is important because redaction only removes what you can see. Hidden data like metadata, comments, or old document versions can still contain sensitive information. Sanitizing removes all this hidden data, making sure no private details are left in the file.
For many items like social security numbers or account numbers, use Acrobat Pro's pattern-based auto-redaction. This feature can find and mark all instances of specific patterns throughout your document automatically. After it runs, always have a second person check a random sample of the redactions to ensure accuracy and completeness.
| Method | Result | Security |
|---|---|---|
| Draw Black Rectangle | Covers text visually, but text remains underneath. | Not secure; text can be copied and pasted. |
| Redact Tool | Permanently removes the text or image. | Secure; content is unrecoverable after saving and sanitizing. |
You should always work on a copy because redaction permanently removes content. If you make a mistake or need the original unredacted document later, you will still have it. This protects your original file from accidental loss of information.